Aspirations of Home in Post-Soviet Russia: Domestic Spaces and National Resonances in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Elena

Abstract

This article analyses the role of domestic living space and its connection with identity in the Russian feature film Elena (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2011), winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. The film uses a spatially symmetrical structure based on two separate apartments frequented by the film's eponymous heroine, both of which represent distinct socio-economic and historical aspects of Soviet and Post-Soviet life. The first is Elena's husband's large, modern, upmarket and centrally located apartment that is as cold, tomb-like and indeed lifeless as it is chic. The second is her son's older, tiny, squalid relic of the Soviet past situated on the periphery, with its c..