Russian Director Invokes 1800s Tradition

New York, Oct. 22 -- Amid the storm of Russian voices that rose after a recent screening of director Andrei Nekrasov's new film about the deterioration of Russian society since the collapse of the Soviet Union, one angry woman's was particularly insistent: "Why are you wearing a red shirt? What's the significance of that color for you?"

Nekrasov, accustomed to the controversy since Lubov and Other Nightmares was released in Russia last year, smiled and shrugged. "My shirt?" he said. "Coincidence."

Whatever else can be said about Nekrasov, who has studied in the United States and Britain and has directed plays in his native St. Petersburg and throughout Europe, he's no communist — but he may not be much of a capitalist, either.

He says he's turned down numerous offers to make the kind of commercial thrillers that are as popular in Russia as their Hollywood counterparts are in the United States. He filmed this movie on a shoestring budget, using primarily an amateur cast, and what he calls the "criminal subplot" is more Crime and Punishment than Get Shorty.

Lubov and Other Nightmares may be the most accurate depiction on film of the state of Russian society in what Nekrasov calls "the year 0, when everything has to be reinvented," as Western influences are embraced by the young and older generations look with nostalgia to a seemingly glorious past.

It may be that accuracy, and the bristling intelligence of Nekrasov's vision — critical of both the Soviet past and the leadership of the present — that has caused the controversy in a public hungry for comfort.

"If I were a politician or a diplomat I'd find a different language to discuss problems," Nekrasov said in an interview after the screening at the New York Festival of Russian Film. "As a filmmaker, I think it's my duty to find as acute a language as possible to discuss these issues."

The movie is a kind of cinematic stream-of-consciousness, interlacing black-and-white footage that often recalls the silent films of Soviet master Sergei Eisenstein, grainy color sequences and newsreel footage into the main narrative, which is shot in sometimes breathtaking color.