Window to Paris is the perfect film to finish our class with. While it most definitely is a Russian film (the name Nikolai Nikolayevich stood out to me), one does not need to know much about Russian history or culture to enjoy it. My family actually watched the whole thing with me, and they were laughing throughout. This movie might have been full of laughs, but it effectively depicted changes in post-soviet society.
The schoolchildren in this film were used to demonstrate the shift in economic strategies and the impressionable nature of children. Youth were very important subjects of soviet indoctrination. Instead of being spoon fed the ideals of the proletariat, the children in this film are being molded into young capitalists. One child even wears a suit and carries a briefcase. Speeches giving praise to Lenin are replaced by passionate strike speeches calling for self-determination and popular sovereignty, ideals of the perfect democracy. The teacher that is spearheading the business agenda wears a sparkly gold suit reminiscent of an American pop star. Nikolai plays his flute and the children follow. This speaks to the pliable nature of children. Whether it be in the soviet union or the united states, children can easily be swayed by propaganda.
My favorite bit was the montage of the children, Nikolai, and Nicole enjoying all that Paris has to offer. In typical fashion, the movie did not end on this happy note and, instead finishes with the two lovers being split searching for each other.
Thando, I agree that this film was a great end to our course and I too enjoyed the humor present! I also think it is interesting that despite the shift from communism to capitalism, the practice of indoctrinating children with government messaging is still present. I think throughout the later half of this course it has been particularly interesting and frightening how children were used in the Soviet experiment and were continued to be used in Post-Soviet life. It would be interesting to discuss the cultural differences regarding how children viewed, in the United States an emphasis on keeping children’s “innocence” alive is valued, while in Russia it seems as childhood is the perfect time to get people sold on the government.
As we discussed in class, I thought music was a prominent theme in the film and how it grabbed the attention of crowds. The scenes where Nikolai gets the attention of his students by very a very happy tune with a flute demonstrates the importance of music. I think this plays into your point about how they were used to display a shift of the nature of children. As one of these scenes, was when Nikolai is trying to get the children back to Russia when playing the flute.
This film was a very interesting and fun way to end class! I think it’s interesting how there’s been this quick shift from communist indoctrination to capitalist indoctrination, as we saw with the U.S. bill in the classroom. Children are the next generation, so it’s not surprising that there has been this very obvious shift in intense indoctrination to make sure the next generation will follow the current generation without too much fuss.
This is another terrific discussion! I really like how Thando’s, Liam’s, and Sophie’s comments about the indoctrination of children link up with Xander’s point about the use of music for social control. I would just suggest, Liam, that you may be unaware of the extent to which American culture, too, indoctrinates children and presents to them a certain “official” and patriotic version of American history, for instance. This can happen through school textbooks, through holiday observances, or through participation in organizations such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, for instance. It may be less overt than it is in Russia, but I definitely think it still occurs (think, for instance, of the story of the first Thanksgiving, for a very simple example).
When talking about youth and the impact that government has on youth you have to think both of the film we watched last week with Anna, posters of the Lenin Youth, and the romantic depictions of peasant children. Something that is a thread that has run through all of the cultural works we have looked at so far is how impressionable youth is to the government, and how the state itself molds the young of the nation. It is cool to see that at each stage of Russia’s evolving government that the children of the nation reflect an innocence and idealism towards the dogmas of the state.