Mythological Logic in Alexey Balabanov’s Films

Alexey Balabanov created his own picture of the world on the screen with both recognizable themes, visual and sound codes. In this article this picture of the world is considered through the prism of the concept of binary opposites proposed by C. Levi-Strauss. This concept primarily concerns the study of myth as a way of conceptualizing the reality through overcoming the antagonism of the opposing facts that directly relate to the most critical aspects of human life. The application of such theory to Balabanov's films is due, to the numerous thesises of various researchers that the director was able to articulate “the myth of the Russian life in the last decade of the 20th century”. The basic pair of opposites, on which the universe of many of Balabanov's films is built, can be indicated as appearance — exile. Balabanov's hero appears in the world symbolically. However, in an unsettled, chaotic world there is no place for him. Therefore, emerging as a person, this hero is simultaneously exiled from this world. The director repeatedly selects one meaning to express the concepts of both appearance and exile. Balabanov's hero acts as an active subject — somewhere acting with a weapon, somewhere using the keys — masks he establishes the links between disparate fragments of reality, creating an unsteady space of order inside the chaos. The appearance — exile pair also determines the stylistic outline of Balabanov’s films — the analogues of these ideas or their derivatives are forming the well-known director’s style. One of the reasons for the massive success of Balabanov’s films is the coincidence of the appearance — exile pair and the socio-cultural context in which the films were made.