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Emerging from the shadows of empire and memory, this groundbreaking study reveals how contemporary Eastern European film and television use neo-noir to confront unresolved trauma, power, and injustice in the post-Soviet world.
This collection explores for the first time the pervasive presence of neo-noir film and TV series (including releases on widely popular streaming channels) in recent Balkan, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian cinema and television. Classic western noir’s structural pessimism was driven by a utopian desire for a just society, a quality which made it attractive to all eastern European countries. The films and series in the collection present modern iterations of a still-relevant colonial past, such as the repression of dissent and of sexual minorities, culpability in World War II, and the activities of the security services. Contemporary narratives reveal the effects of the violence released after the collapse of the Soviet Union—the continuing trauma and scars of an unprocessed past, social dysfunction, organized crime, ecological degradation, exploitation of indigenous populations, and restorative nostalgia for previous systems of governance.
“This lively and well-written collection is a timely contribution to both Slavic cultural and film studies, which illuminates how noir and neo-noir have served as a ‘dark mirror’ exploring unprocessed traumas of the Soviet/socialist experience: corruption, repression, historical erasure, treatment of minority populations, patriarchal gender constructions, and others. In its comparative approach and interrogation of noir and neo-noir cinema in a range of cultures and time periods, including classical Hollywood noir and Nordic neo-noir, the book is also an outstanding contribution to global film studies.”
—Dr. Justin Wilmes, Associate Professor of Russian Studies, East Carolina University
“This innovative volume examines how a growing set of neo-noir productions in contemporary Eastern European film and television address and mediate historical trauma. Bringing together incisive essays analyzing media from across the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Russia, The Haunted Present deepens our understanding of noir’s transnational reach and significance. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of film and television, as well as to noir enthusiasts more generally.”
—Dr. Christine Evans, Associate Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Alexander Prokhorov is Professor of Russian and Film Studies at The College of William & Mary.
Elena Prokhorova is Professor of Russian and Film Studies at The College of William & Mary.
Rimgaila Salys is Professor Emerita of the Russian Program at the University of Colorado Boulder and an expert in 20th century Russian literature, film, and culture.
Note to Readers
Introduction
Alexander Prokhorov, Elena Prokhorova, Rimgaila Salys
The Slavic Balkans
Neo-Noir after Yugoslavia: The Fourth Man and A Balkan Noir
Marina Filipovic
The Czech Republic
The Past in the Shadow: Explorations of Czechoslovak History en noir
Philip Tuxbury-Gleissner
Poland
We Have Lost Our Way: The Return of Negative Affect in Contemporary Polish Noir Series
Elżbieta Ostrowska, Kamila Żyto
A Neo-Noir Cop Out in Piotr Domalewski’s Operation Hyacinth (Hiacynt, 2021)
Helena Goscilo
Russia
The Ephemeral Presence of Noir in Soviet Cinema
Elena Prokhorova, Alexander Prokhorov
Femme Fatale as Wife and Mother in the Russian Television Drama Ordinary Woman
Irina Souch
“We Are Not in Sweden”: The Dead Lake as a Russian Take on Neo-Noir
Tatiana Mikhailova
Diatlov Pass: Neo-Noir Engages Russia’s Buried Past
Rimgaila Salys
Vampires Guard the Status Quo: Russian Gothic Noir in the Pre-War years (2020-22)
Mark Lipovetsky
Our Serial Killers, Ourselves: Russian Neo-Noir TV as a Symptom and Self- Incrimination
Elena Prokhorova, Alexander Prokhorov
Ukraine
Towards a Ukrainian Neo-Noir: History, Contexts, and the Case of Oleh Sentsov’s Rhino
Vitaly Chernetsky
Filmography
Index