In an attempt to make this blog rather less obscure and hermetic than it’s been thus far, I’m starting a new series that aims to give a general overview of the history of Russian and Eastern European cinema from the perspective of a hundred of its most distinguished titles.
The full shortlist is here – and was assembled according to these principles:
1. The film must be available (or imminent) on an English-friendly DVD;
2. The film must be notable in some way (artistically or commercially; big domestic hits are certainly valid);
3. The film must reflect the native culture in some way (so no Repulsions or Mephistos);
4. No more than two titles per director (to prevent the likes of Eisenstein, Tarkovsky and Kieślowski squeezing out others);
5. The list as a whole should reflect a reasonable geographical and temporal spread, while accepting that certain decades (notably the 1960s) were vastly more fruitful than others.
Obviously, this means that loads of equally valid titles are going to fall by the wayside, and there’s every possibility that when I get to the end of writing up every entry, there’ll be several dozen additional releases that could easily be added – so this list shouldn’t be taken as being remotely definitive (even assuming such an exercise was possible or desirable in the first place).
But I can safely say for now that every single one of these titles is worth seeing – and if you want to know where to get hold of the DVD(s) before I get round to supplying full details, just e-mail me, and I’ll be happy to help. Virtually everything is available now, and the handful of titles that aren’t just yet (i.e. Markéta Lazarová, The Round-Up) are imminent.