Karen Shakhnazarov's films are all, in a sense, "period pieces." They find a solid place in international film festival culture without ever quite winning the prize. "Vanished Empire" had a particularly personal ring for me, since I began my long-time study in and out of Soviet/Post-Soviet Russia in the period this film depicts (circa 1974), and had an uncomfortably eerie sense of deja-vu throughout the film. Searching for an American parallel, I came up with "American Graffiti," where Richard Dreyfus's character is caught between remaining in his Middle-American hometown or heading off to an Eastern college (as he does) and returning many years later to write about it.
Shakhnazarov's film has a similarly autobiographical feel to it, although his young hero ends embracing, rather than rejecting, the culture from which he emerged: the Russian intelligentsia. The meticulous reproduction of the Soviet 1970's offers a vaguely satiric self- portrait, hinting at the educated class's role in preserving world culture and history while rejecting indoctrination into Soviet politics and values. Therefore, the young hero, Sergey's true love is not, as he believes, the "good girl," Lyuda, who prefers the ACTUAL recording of "Swan Lake" (a covert reference to the ballet's role in service to the state) contained in the black market record jacket of the Rolling Stone latest release to the Western contraband recording that Sergey has paid dearly for, expecting to win her affections. Sergey's instinctual pull towards rebellion keep him from romanic fulfillment, but bring him closer to his true self.
Instead, Sergey comes to love and honor his dying mother, and follows his grandfather's advice by making a pilgrimage to the archaeological site that represented his family's life's work.In the ancient desert sands, Sergey finds the source of his earlier hallucinatory, drug-induced vision.
Emblematic details (cars, records, ancient trinkets) speak to viewers with Shaknazarov's background. Reading them properly, however, requires something of the education Shaknazarov's hero gained in the intervening years between the "coming of age" story and the film's contemporary epilogue.
Shakhnazarov's film has a similarly autobiographical feel to it, although his young hero ends embracing, rather than rejecting, the culture from which he emerged: the Russian intelligentsia. The meticulous reproduction of the Soviet 1970's offers a vaguely satiric self- portrait, hinting at the educated class's role in preserving world culture and history while rejecting indoctrination into Soviet politics and values. Therefore, the young hero, Sergey's true love is not, as he believes, the "good girl," Lyuda, who prefers the ACTUAL recording of "Swan Lake" (a covert reference to the ballet's role in service to the state) contained in the black market record jacket of the Rolling Stone latest release to the Western contraband recording that Sergey has paid dearly for, expecting to win her affections. Sergey's instinctual pull towards rebellion keep him from romanic fulfillment, but bring him closer to his true self.
Instead, Sergey comes to love and honor his dying mother, and follows his grandfather's advice by making a pilgrimage to the archaeological site that represented his family's life's work.In the ancient desert sands, Sergey finds the source of his earlier hallucinatory, drug-induced vision.
Emblematic details (cars, records, ancient trinkets) speak to viewers with Shaknazarov's background. Reading them properly, however, requires something of the education Shaknazarov's hero gained in the intervening years between the "coming of age" story and the film's contemporary epilogue.