The Soviet Art House Cinema about the War: Case Study

The Soviet art house film Eastern Corridor was largely based on the conquests of the best wartime movies. Like Ivan’s Childhood, the visual language of the Eastern Corridor is distinguished by exquisite black and white graphics, imbued with a complex game with space and symbols. But this is the case when the cinematheque quotation (visual motifs of early films by Andrzej Wajda, Miklós Jancsó, Andrei Tarkovsky, military themes of the Czech "new wave" (... and The Fifth Rider is Fear, "Wagon to Vienna", "Diamonds of the Night), black-and-white parables of Ingmar Bergman in the late 1950s – early 1960s, etc.) was organically included in the film, without damaging its existential meditation, philosophical and visual originality. However, as a result, the film was not at all what the authorities expected it to be and was met with hostility not only by party officials, but also by quite liberal film critics. In recent years, Russia has produced many films and serials about the war. And the authors of these movies, not feeling the censorship of pressure, reveal to us the dramatic pages of the "fateful forties"... But even against this background, seemingly forever forgotten and scolded, the Eastern Corridor today does not look outdated – neither in terms of film language nor in terms of problems. "Manuscripts", indeed, do not burn...