Stylistically the cold Russian film Elena and the perversely American film Killer Joe couldn’t be further apart. Yet they both are prime examples of neo-noir and in their own unique ways wallow in the melodrama of the downtrodden.
In Elena, the title character (Nadezhda Markina, a modicum of pent-up middle-aged rage) trudges through the routines of her day in her posh Moscow penthouse living with the wealthy husband she hooked ten years ago when she nursed him back to health. Her son is the epitome of the post-Soviet downtrodden, living in a trashy tenement tower underneath the shadows of nuclear silos with his lazy teenage son, do-nothing wife and an infant. He begs his mother for money constantly, and she eventually becomes obsessed with funding her grandson’s college education even though we all know he’s not college material. Her husband refuses to continue to support her loser family, even though he continues to dutifully spoil his own screw-up of a daughter. When he has another heart attack and decides to revisit his will, Elena must resort to desperate measures. Continue reading
