President Medvedev ‘outs’ Vladimir Putin’s sexuality before attacking the Prime Minister’s plane with a sub-machine gun, but it’s the more improbable sight of John Cusack savouring Putin’s rendition of Blueberry Hill that finally gives away the fictional nature of Russia’s most talked-about election video.
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The spoof trailer, a hilarious tribute to the disaster movie “2012”, sees the struggle between the country’s ‘tandem’ leadership result in a global apocalypse, and ends with the words: “There’s always an alternative: Communist Party of Russia”.
Though the Party has denied making the clip, the video featured prominently on its website before being taken down.
It’s compulsive viewing, so I have provided a rough translation of the key points as they appear.
ANCIENT RELIGIONS HAVE FORETOLD THIS…
IT IS UNAVOIDABLE…
Clip of Putin: “The next elections in the Russian Federation are in 2012”
TWO CANDIDATES…
BUT ONLY ONE MUST REMAIN.
Medvedev: “Let me first say what I think about this, as President”
Putin: “I am the president of the Russian federation”
Medvedev: “I am”
Putin: “I am”
Medvedev: Laughs
Putin: “I am not joking!”
BETRAYAL…
Putin, on screen: “Mr Medvedev and I have a very effective tandem”
Medvedev: “That is a lie”
Putin: “Medvedev and I are of a traditional [sexual] orientation”
Medvedev: That is a lie
Cuts to a man in a control room remarking in amazement: “Wow!”
THE BATTLE WILL INVOLVE EVERYTHING:
KOMPROMAT (cuts to a young woman getting out from under Putin’s desk)
THREATS (clip of Putin saying “we need a small, victorious war”)
and HIGHER POWERS (clips of Medvedev praying)
The inspired final 40 seconds of the clip require no translation.
Though tame by Western standards, the video reflects the welcome and steady re-emergence of satire, parody and artistic provocation to Russian political life.
After flourishing during Perestroika and early 1990s, public pranks and comedic grilling of powerful figures were swept underground by Putin. Shortly after coming to power, he ordered the closure of the hit satirical show Kukli – Russia’s version of Spitting Image involving a cast of grotesque dummies representing the country’s elite. Since then, the mainstream media has made sure the humour stays generic and politically correct. In 2008, the government shut down the Exile, the wickedly funny alternative newspaper.
Political jokes were a central cornerstone of Soviet society (from dissidents to apparatchiks) under Communism, even when telling them could get you a stiff prison sentence. Thus, the last decade was a tough aberration for a country steeped in the culture of satire and surreal, dark political humour.
The group that has done most to revive the absurdist and anarchic spirit of Daniil Kharms has been Voina. Translated as War, the collective of artistic provocateurs gained worldwide fame for painting a penis on a St Petersburg drawbridge overlooking the FSB headquarters, projecting a skull and crossbones onto the Russian White House, kiss-a-cop day, crossing one of Russia’s busiest streets blindfolded with a blue bucket, and staging an orgy at a Moscow museum.
But if the Soviet tradition of humorous dissent has returned, so has its age old partner – state repression. Since the start of the year, Voina members have been arrested, beaten up and jailed, most recently for a prank involving overturned police cars; their leader has fled the country.
It’s like that old joke:
Comrade Brezhnev, is it true that you collect political jokes?” — “Yes” — “And how many have you collected so far?” — “Three and a half labor camps full”
