Comparison of Shlikov from Pavel Lungin's "Taxi Blues" and Danila from Alexei Balabanov's "Brother"

PERSONALITY AND DEALING WITH LIFE EVENTS

The Soviet Union experienced a great time of destabilization between the late 1980s and early 1990s despite attempts to pull it out of its socio-economic crisis. Mikhail Gorbachev came into power in 1985 as the General Secretary of the Communist Party. During the time of his rule, citizens obtained much greater freedom than they had under the leadership of previous leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev and his successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenk. Gorbachev’s reforms included freedom of press and decreased censorship, he released dissidents from prison and implemented a greater tolerance for religion, as well as many other positive benefits. In terms of economics, he attempted to transform the country from socialism into a quasi-capitalist state. For example, farmers were given the permission to sell their products on the free market and he allowed (to a limited extent) other small, private businesses to be created. However, despite Gorbachev’s good intentions, he ultimately failed. Many new criminal organizations arose, and began selling their items on the black-market, and there was an ever-increasing economic gap between the rich and the poor as a result. Furthermore, Gorbachev’s limitations of vodka production, in an attempt to keep the society sober, further negatively impacted the economy, since the USSR was heavily dependent on the revenues from Vodka (Brown, Archie. 130). To make matters worse, Gorbachev’s successor Boris Yeltsin came into power, he dismantled the USSR and all of its members (such as Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan) gained their own independence, thus reducing Russia’s global power. He also privatized public safety which gave rise to Russian mafias who took control of industries and began extorting the public in exchange for providing safety. Yeltsin also continued to embrace the free-market principles and the rising costs of living and the increase in poverty continued as he increased interest rates and decreased welfare spending. (Truu, M. L. 6). Russia’s economy continued to fall during the 1990s, losing about 43% of its real gross domestic product between 1991 and 1998 (Doder, Dusko. 1) The chaos and plight of Russian citizens was reflected in cinema throughout these years and was even encouraged due to Gorbachev’s political relaxation and lack of censorship. Pavel Lungin’s Taxi Blues (1990) and Alexei Balabanov’s Brother (1997) are great examples of such films that expose the reality of life in Russia. Taxi Blues ​ and Brother ​ both present the harsh side of life such as criminal networks, violence, psychological torment and stress. However, both films differ in how the main character deals with these problems and each character’s personality is the main factor that leads to their different outcome. Taxi Blues presents a Shlikov, a neurotic character with a Type A personality who ineffectively deals with his life’s plight and struggles while Brother presents Danila, a more relaxed man with a Type B personality that provides him with more efficient problem solving skills and resilience.

Pavel Lungin’s Taxi Blues ​ is often described as a “Chernukha” film, which is a colloquial word for “blackness” (Vorobiyova-Ray, Kira, 2). These types of films never would have been produced in other eras of strict censorship such as those that preceded Gorbachev’s rule. This film provides a very pessimistic outlook on life through the use of claustrophobic camera shots of small, dirty and crowded apartments, fighting and violence, animalistic behaviour (such as rape). (Horton, Andrew and Brashinsky, Michael 163-164) The main character Shlikov (Pyotr Zaychenko) demonstrates a Type A personality which is characterized by being aggressive, overly ambitious, high need for control (of people and situations) and a general sense of feeling uptight and tense. Type A personalities are also strongly correlated with neuroticism which includes feelings of anger, moodiness, guilt, jealousy and other negative emotions (Cramer, 73).

Throughout the movie Taxi Blues ​, Shlikov experiences excessive guilt and vulnerability to emotional manipulation, despite the fact that Lyosha (Pyotr Mamanov) takes advantage of him throughout the entire film, starting off with his refusal to pay the taxi cab bill. Shlikov feels sympathetic towards him, and even after punishing Lyosha such as by overworking him, beating him, causing his arrest, Shlykov always tries to make amendments or go back on his actions. For example, after Lyosha had flooded Shlikov’s apartment, the latter has him arrested. But then he almost immediately goes to the police station to steal the legal documents, even fighting with the security guard over it. He decides to make Lyosha work to pay back the flooding expenses but when the latter becomes sick and depressed, Shlikov’s angry demeanor is immediately transformed to that of a caring father, as he makes Lyosha breakfast and puts an arm around his shoulders, sitting with him on the bed. This scene is in stark contrast to all the other shots of Shlikov either standing over Lyosha or holding him up against a wall by his neck. In fact, the extended stationary, medium-close up shot of the two sitting together on the bed, with the audience’s clear view of both their facial expressions (Lyosha’s depressed face and Shlikov’s frown as he listens to Lyosha’s depressing speech) serves to emphasize Shlikov’s guilt at his own harsh treatment of the man. This scene even manages to emotionally manipulate the audience as they are forced to stare at Lyosha’s weak form, and forget about his previous bad deeds.

Another scene in which Shlikov demonstrates his guilt is after he had just bailed Lyosha out of jail, after the two had a physical fight over Lyosha’s seduction of Christina. Shlikov tells Lyosha to get out of his life. But then Lyosha lays down on the train track in an attempt at suicide. The camera shows us a static shot with Shlikov peering down at Lyosha’s body while the train approaches them slowly from behind. This creates suspense and makes us appreciate just how sympathetic Shlikov is being, to the point where he’s risking his own life, but at the same time, the audience feels sorry for him because he keeps falling into Lyosha’s trap. After all, Shlikov’s emotional vulnerability to manipulation ultimately stabs him in the back at the end of the film, when he is ultimately rejected and humiliated by Lyosha after the latter has returned from his musical tour. Although Shlikov was attempting to make a “man” out of Lyosha and turn him into a decent citizen, he is not thanked or appreciated for his efforts. Instead, Lyosha shows that he does not have time for Shlikov, showing up on his birthday with a group of strangers only for a couple of minutes, dressing Shlikov up in a ridiculous hat and kimono, and tossing a sex-doll in his face. This scene juxtaposes a shot of Shlikov standing alone in the camera-frame in his humiliating attire, followed by shots of Lyosha laughing with his friends. These two separate shots in which Shlikov is not included in the camera frame with Lyosha serves to emphasize the latter’s rejection of him.

Another major issue with Shlikov’s personality is his lack of psychological and behavioural control. He displays negative emotions throughout the entire film, mainly anger. In fact, the only time he appears to be happy is when he is with his girlfriend and kissing her , fondling her, dancing with her etc. This shows that he is unable to make himself feel happy and that he is reliant on others. Shlikov has ineffective ways to vent and appears to ruminate over anything that goes wrong with his life instead of moving on. Every time he encounters something stressful in his life, he goes on to exercise intensely as a way to vent. There’s a scene at the beginning of the movie where he is doing bar exercises and there’s a close-up of his contorted face, as he’s obviously exhausting himself. This scene happens after Lyosha escaped without paying the cab money. The exact same close-up and contorted facial expression occurs during the exact same exercise after Lyosha leaves to America with Hal Singer. The repetitive shots serve to emphasize that exercise isn't really done for pleasure, it stands as a visual metaphor for his rumination. The exercise scenes always occur after something stressful happens in his life and that instead of simply ignoring them, he lets them torment him both emotionally and physically.

Shlikov’s lack of psychological control is further demonstrated by his moodiness and fluctuations in emotions. This is perfectly demonstrated after he sees Lyosha dancing with Christina as he serenades her with his saxophone. A close-up on Shlikov’s face shows him brooding as he watches the two, then he quietly gets up and leaves the room. At first, the audience is tricked into thinking that Shlikov is just going to leave the two alone to do whatever they want, but Shlikov returns less than a minute later, smirking as he slowly approaches Lyosha, then he suddenly yanks the saxophone out of his grasp, smashes it and strangle Lyosha. His unpredictable actions give the audience the impression that Shlikov is mentally unstable.

Another instance where Shlikov’s moodiness is on display is when he suddenly bursts into outrage during his birthday party that includes his girlfriend and a group of friends playing guitar and singing. The camera circles around, giving the audience a shot of all the party members' happy expressions one by one, before landing on the side-profile of Shlikov, as we watch him drink a cup of some alcoholic beverage. From this side-profile, the audience cannot make out his facial expression precisely although his body language appears to be neutral. But after he blows out the candle on the cake, the lights go out for one second. This is a metaphorical representation of Shlikov’s moodiness. Before the lights go out, he is calm, his actions are neutral, he doesn't appear to be displaying any signs of mental instability. But after the one-second darkness and the lights go off then turn back on, his mood has completely changed, in a split second literally, just as fast as the light had gone on and off. He suddenly bursts into a very angry song and speech. A stationary, close-up, personal shot shows us Shlikov’s face as he sings this depressing song, forcing the audience to take in his increasingly angry expression, and notice that his head is literally shaking with rage. This shot lasts for 34 seconds, then flashes to Kristina’s bewildered face for 2 seconds, then back to Shlikov where he starts to accuse his friends of being users and not loving him. His facial expression is now a crazy angry grin, and he smashes the guitar and grabs an ax in a threatening manner towards his friends before he runs out of the party room and starts smashing at meat with the ax. The vast amount of different facial expressions and emotions that Shlikov displayed in this scene (neutral to depressed to angry to manical leer) shows just how out of control his emotions are.

This previous scene is immediately followed with a long stationary shot of Lyosha playing the saxophone. The juxtaposition of these shots (Shlikov smashing around with an ax and Lyosha playing the instrument) creates an association; the audience knows that Shlikov is enraged because of Lyosha. In fact, Shlikov’s obsession with Lyosha is another sign of his lack of psychological control. He literally can’t stop thinking about Lyosha and his obsession blinds him from the reality that Lyosha has moved on with his life as a famous musician. In fact, this scene acts as a visual metaphor for this. The camera shows us a closeup shot of Lyosha’s face as he plays the saxophone, and the audience can see that his eyes are staring off into the distance at no particular thing. His eyes don't move, not even once. He just doesn't seem to be taking in his audience, (or Shlikov for that manner). He’s staring off into space, completely focused on his saxophone and his eyes get progressively narrower and narrower, before shutting completely, symbolically shutting Shlikov from his life while the latter sits in the audience crying. The camera gives us a close-up shot of Shlikov’s face with tears streaming down his cheeks as he watches Lyosha, symbolizing his agony over the fact that Lyosha is no longer completely in his life.

Shlikov’s obsession with Lyosha is further demonstrated in a scene where he is standing in the middle of a road, staring up at a massive screen which shows Lyosha playing his saxophone. We are given a shot of Shlikov’s full body from the back, as he stares up at the screen, which is a bright green and white display, in stark contrast to the pitch-black sky, forcing the audience to stare at the screen for 15 seconds, then the camera switches to a close-up shot of Shlikov’s entranced, wide-eyes expression as he continues staring, completely oblivious to the cars zooming by.

Another sign of Type A personality is Shlikov’s excessive need for control. He almost acts like an animal with no sense of morality or consciousness in order to feel in power. This is demonstrated in a rape-scene which occurs after he wakes up from having been knocked out by Christina and he hears her mutter that Shlikov is the “Champion of dicks”. He immediately grabs her, pins her against the windowsill and penetrates her anally, despite her protests and her yelling out “I hate that! Let go!” His desire to dominate his girlfriend extends the boundaries of morality as he is literally taking away her right to not engage in the type of activity that she does not desire.

The precise camera shot of Shlikov’s body from behind, including his naked buttocks, and Christina’s flailing legs serves to emphasize the lack of empathy and emotions on the part of Shlikov by depersonalizing him, as we are not given a clear view of his face.

Another instance where Shlikov’s indignant behaviour and obsession with control is portrayed is when he beats up a group of youth. They just wanted a ride, perhaps acting a tad too immature for his liking as one of them jumps onto the bumper of his Taxi. Shlikov could have simply driven off, it’s not like they would have been able to stop him as they lack the physical ability and strength associated with their young age. But instead, he starts kicking them, and punishing them, (including a couple of girls) and demanding that they beg for his forgiveness. He even smashes one’s face against the wall and leaves another unconscious on the ground. There’s a closeup shot of a youth wearing a blue shirt whom he holds by the nape, tilting his head back so far that his trachea appears to be bulging out. The young boy appears lifeless, almost like a martyr or a captive in the hands of his enemy, as Shlikov rips his shirt, and this moment is so dramatic in itself that it leaves the audience wondering if all this was even necessary.

While Pavel Lungin’s film portrays a character who is mentally deranged and incapable of dealing with stress, Alexei Balabanov presents Danila (Sergei Bogrov), a character who, overall, is more of a calm and relaxed character and and shows great resilience to life’s harsh circumstances and greater emotional well-being. This is characteristic of a Type B personality (Thomas, Sandra Paul. 4-7) The movie Brother ​ gave Russian society a sense of hope after the collapse of the USSR, and it was the first Russian blockbuster (Mccausland, Gerald, and Vladimir Padunov. 2006).

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