Late Soviet Symbolism: A Bloc-Gothic Double Feature

"The last years of Soviet cinema saw a surprising return to the stylistic extravagances of prerevolutionary symbolism. The gallows humor and logorrheic tendencies of the early twentieth-century avant-garde influenced a singularly disorienting style among filmmakers in the Soviet bloc, who translated the linguistic excess of their forebears into a deliriously overcooked aesthetic that gambled coherence for the sake of immersing audiences in the lush psychoses of the late nineteenth-century aristocracy. This December, Spectacle is proud to present two seldom-screened works that best embody this decadent strain of cinema in the waning days of the Union." —Spectacle