ABSTRACT
Ever since feature film production began in the country, Russian films have reflected a broader national preoccupation with the nature of Russia’s relationship with the rest of the world. So, right from the beginning, many Russian films told stories about visitors coming to Russia from abroad or about Russians journeying to foreign countries. Sometimes foreigners visited Russia and the Soviet Union with nefarious intent, but on other occasions they came in a spirit of openness and even fell in love with Soviet citizens. This chapter examines the fate of these tropes in the films of the perestroika period and the 1990s. Once again, cinematic foreigners (many of them from émigré backgrounds) visit Russia and are met with curiosity and enthusiasm. But in the 1990s it became possible for Russian citizens to travel to the rest of the world on a scale that had not been possible hitherto and so there are also films that portray Russian encounters with the United States and Western Europe, particularly Paris and Venice. Both groups of films are usually driven by a patriotism fuelled by a sense of national humiliation contingent on the collapse of the Soviet system. For this reason the films discussed here chart failed encounters and miscomprehension more often than they celebrate a true meeting of hearts and minds.
