Superhero Genre and Graphic Storytelling in Contemporary Hungarian and Russian Cinema

Abstract

The chapter examines how certain contemporary Eastern European genre films use superhero stories rooted in American comic books, and apply specific techniques and methods of the comic book form. Besides the visual connections between the two media, film and comics, the chapter also addresses intermediality and adaptation through the representation of the superhero, and deals with questions concerning postcolonial and post-socialist interpretations of superhero adaptations outside of the United States. It focusses on the connections and continuity between national mass culture, folklore and contemporary national genre films. The interpretations focus primarily on Shaman Vs. Ikarus (György Pálfi, Hungary, 2002) and Black Lightning (Dmitry Kiselev – Aleksandr Voitinsky, Russia, 2009), but also build on the context of other non-American superhero movies, Russian genre films and Hungarian art films.