Ville Haapasalo’s drag queen challenges Russian attitudes

Russian gay film swarms with stereotypes

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By Anneli Ahonen in St. Petersburg
     
      The aim was to make this movie already ten years ago, when the director came up with an idea for such a film. Maybe it would have been better to have made it back then.
      Veselchaki (”Jolly Fellows”) tells a story of five drag queens who perform at a Moscow gay club, struggling until the bitter end about their right to be what they are.
      The name of Ville Haapasalo, a popular Finnish actor who works extensively in Russia, has been used to advertise the film. Russian audiences have become used to seeing him in roles of nice guys with a Finnish or German origin, but Roza’s role is something quite new.
     
”I have been involved in the project since the very beginning. We have had a lot of difficulties, not simply because of the sensitiveness of the topic”, Haapasalo writes, saying that for the time being he can be reached only by SMS messages.
      The film was shelved once, as director Felix Mikhaylov could not gain financing for the film. The financiers regarded the theme as risky.
      ”Officially, the issue continues to be a taboo in Russia”, Haapasalo says.
     
The financiers have now estimated that the Russian audience is ready for the first movie on homosexuality.
      Visibility has been secured by a release in 72 copies in 12 cities around Russia. It is also set to play in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Baltic States.
      ”It is a minor miracle that the movie was ever released. The feedback has been unexpectedly good, even though we are not likely to reach the target in terms of box office ratings”, Mikhaylov notes.
      Only a dozen or so spectators have turned up for the night performance at a movie theatre in St. Petersburg. In addition to two couples, there are some beer-drinking chortling teenage boys.
     
The film does not only make fun of cross-dressing men.
      Neither does the audience feel like laughing when a gang of boys is beating up Gelya (Ivan Nikolayev) or when Fira (Aleksei Klimushkin) hears that he is HIV positive.
      One of the best scenes depicts Lyusya’s (Danila Kozlovsky) return from Moscow to his home village where he is awaited only by his alcoholic mother.
      Eventually Lyusya decides to give a raisede finger to the narrow-mindedness of the village, dons a pink frock, and heads out into the street singing Gloria Gaynor’s hit I Will Survive.
      By the roadside, an old woman and a goat are watching him flounce away.
      ”It was one hell of an interesting role and every actor’s dream, even though everybody I know warned me that it is a dangerous role in Russia”, says Haapasalo.
     
Negative attitudes and violent attacks on gays are not uncommon in Russia.
      In Moscow, Mayor Yury Luzhkov is notorious for having repeatedly blocked all attempts to hold a gay pride parade in the city.
      According to Valery Sozayev, the chairman of the board of Vykhod (”Coming Out”), a St. Petersburg-based LGBT rights organisation, the movie manages to capture something essential about Russia.
      ”The movie naturally shows notably stereotyped characters. At the same time, it brings up actual themes of LGBT-related phobias”, Sozayev notes.
     
Sozayev believes that the film will bring sexual minorities and the mainstream population closer to each other.
      ”Honestly speaking, when it comes to cinematic art, Veselchaki is rather thin fare. But in terms of toleration, the film is a really important step forward,” Valery Sozayev concludes.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.11.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Three Finns arrested at gay rights demo during Moscow Eurovision Song Contest (18.5.2009)

See also:
  Ville Haapasalo wins Best Actor at Moscow International Film Festival (1.7.2002)

Links:
  Ville Haapasalo at the Internet Movie Database
  Veselchaki (2009) on IMDb

ANNELI AHONEN / Helsingin Sanomat