Little Vera (dir. Valery Pichul, 1988) became the most infamous and scandalous of the glasnost films. The film deals in an unrelenting naturalistic idiom with social problems that had long been denied in the Soviet Union, and had certainly never been treated openly in Soviet mass media. The film became the benchmark film for "chernukha" - a term that refers to the unvarnished representation of Russian society's most seemy and difficult aspects.

In prepraration for watching this film you should read George Faraday's discussion of film-making in the post-Soviet years: how does he characterize the different strands in perestroika and post-Soviet film making? Where does Little Vera fit in? How does he define chernukha, and what the makers of chernukha films hoped to achieve? What about this film makes it a chernukha "classic"?

(This essay by Faraday will set the stage for all three of our final films; if you're averse to "knowing how things end" before you've seen a film, you can skip pp. 190 - 191, which describe what happens in Burnt by the Sun.)

As you watch Little Vera, pay close attention to how Pichul' shoots the beginning and ending of the film: how do you read these shots?

This film can be interestingly compared to Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears; as we discussed in class, that film hints at social problems - alcoholism, the breakup of marriages, the anomie/loneliness of modern urban society - but it quckly covers them up with comedy. (Note, too, Brendan's question about what seems like a reference to domestic abuse in "The Alarm Clock in the Cupboard.") In this context, pay particular attention to the quoted passage on pp. 176 -177 in Faraday, which suggests that films like Little Vera replace the "syrup" of Soviet illusion with the "mustard" of post-Soviet expose.

Finally, much of the scandal this film caused (in the Soviet Union) focused on its frank and open depiction of sexuality. Our readings for Thursday of next week will focusin part on this aspect of the glasnost period.