The term "arthouse" exists in full for about 20 years. In the 1980-1990s. a wide audience was intensely stuffed with action-style films, and “smart cinema” practically did not reach the wide distribution, being limited to a closed or festival film screening. Recently, the line between the mainstream and the arthouse has been erased. Blockbusters, designed for a wide audience, are being created smarter, sometimes with claims to philosophizing. And the so-called "narrow-profile" good films - an art house from Kusturica, Jarmusch, Kim Ki-Duc, Von Trier, Van Sent, Bernardo Bertolucci - collect a full house. Undoubtedly, this is a positive trend, indicating the preparedness of the current generation of film fans.
Signs of arthouse cinema
If we consider in a broad sense the definition of the term, and, more likely, in the field of the film industry and film distribution than art criticism, then good art-house films are not mainstream independent film projects that are shown in specialized cinemas. Such paintings have a lot of distinguishing features, and none of them can be called decisive. For example, many film scholars argue that in such a movie the story is intricate, time periods are often deliberately mixed up in it, and linear in the mainstream one. This statement is correct, although in the history of the world film industry there are arthouse paintings with a simple linear history, for example, almost all films of the Dardenne brothers (incidentally, very good art-house films) or Le Havre by Aki Kaurismyaki.
New-fashioned trend
At present, many film critics call the conflict based on social or political problems a hallmark of arthouse cinema. These are film projects that are characterized by a pronounced sympathy for the social lower classes and all the disadvantaged, for example, in Rosetta or the film “Child” of the Dardenne brothers-directors. However, this new-fangled trend cannot be called a comprehensive defining feature of arthouse cinema, since Francois Ozon’s “Pool” is clearly not about social basics. Or in David Cronenberg’s Dangerous Method project, in which exclusively all the characters are fairly wealthy people. Nevertheless, the above films are the best films (art house). Rating paintings in this area is almost impossible to compose, since the style is very diverse.
Typical public
It’s hard enough to limit the audience that will be interested in good art house films. For example, The Theorem directed by Pierre Paolo Pazolini unequivocally appeals to a special, limited intellectual layer of society, to those who are interested in delving into the intricacies of hidden meanings, to lovers of intellectual riddles. On the other hand, the project of Hana Makhmalbaf “Buddha collapsed with shame” or “Child” are all the same Dardenne quite simple and do not require any kind of preparation from the beholder. A gorgeous short film about the viewer's perception of non-mainstream cinema was shot by the Cohen brothers for the movie almanac “Everyone Has His Own Cinema”. The short film is a short story about a cowboy who accidentally wandered into the screening of the Nuri Bilge Ceylan film “The Seasons”. The hero leaves the cinema genuinely shocked.
Arthouse cinema in Russia
In Russia, this genre, praised by European film festivals, is the subject of fierce debate, almost a social divide. Russian film critics are constantly accusing Russian film critics of denigrating, one-sided and perverted views on life in the country. Although domestic good art-house films are just a segment of cinema production, originally freed from the obligation to bring pleasure, nothing more. One of the fundamental functions of author's non-profit cinema is a critical image and understanding of reality, attempts to revise society, the state, the layman, and everything else.
It just so happened that in Russia “chic decorations for arthouse” are found almost everywhere. They are overcome or simply filmed by good films by contemporary authors Anna Melikyan and Avdotya Smirnova, taken for granted and used as a background for the “eternal” by Boris Khlebnikov, Alexei Popogrebsky in the melodramatic Koktebel and in the dramatic Simple Things. Other authors manage to make her a full-fledged actor, like Alexei Balabanov in “Cargo 200”. And none of the above is unnatural or far-fetched.
Best films art house (Russia)
In Russia, according to the directors of the arthouse, the necessary texture surrounds so tightly that even the initially existential abstract plot narrative takes on the character of criticism of social everyday life. After Tarkovsky, who presented an invaluable gift to Russian cinema - the film "Stalker", all progressive minds started talking about the great future of the Russian arthouse. The fact that the prospects of the domestic arthouse are phenomenal is evidenced by the best Russian films (art house), the list of which is presented below.
- "Exile", "Elena" directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev.
- “The Last Tale of Rita” by Renata Litvinova.
- "Big Top", "Dust" by Sergey Loban.
- "Live" Vasily Sigarev.
- “Bury Me Behind the Baseboard” by Sergei Snezhkin.
- "Depicting a victim" by Cyril Serebrennikov.
- "Siberia. Monamour »by Vyacheslav Ross.
- The "house" of Oleg Pogodin.
The field of activity of our directors - adherents of the arthouse - is unlimited, the competition is minimal, the possibilities are inexhaustible.