Taxi Blues : The anxiety of Soviet masculinity

Introduction

The late 1980s and early 1990s in the Soviet Union were a time of destabilization in which those who had once been on the higher rungs of the socio-economic ladder now found themselves rapidly trending towards the bottom. Doctors and university professors could no longer support their families as they had in the past, while black marketeers and petty criminals were the purveyors of a new kind of ‘business’ that redefined what it meant to be successful. This social and economic paradigm shift had far-reaching consequences, and as a result, many people, especially men, perceived of themselves as physically, economically and socially impotent in the face of perestroika (literally ‘restructured’) society. The cause of this destabilization of Soviet norms was blamed on the brinksmanship of the Cold War, in which the West was eventually cast in the role of ‘winner’ and the Soviet Union as ‘loser’. As such, the cause of the Soviet male’s economic anxiety, which was often conceptualized as impotence in all facets of his life, was an undefined Western enemy.

Sergei Kukhterin argues that in the post-communist era the state no longer aspired to be a father to its citizens, which created a new space for men to define their own roles within society. As men tried to find their way during this transitional period, they had particular difficulty in regaining control of their private lives (Kukhterin, 2000: 80–1). These fears of a society in transition were quickly reflected in popular cultural production. Eliot Borenstein observes:

Pop culture in the 1990s both condensed and magnified the anxieties that gripped the nation … Together, sex and violence provided post-Soviet popular culture with a symbolic vocabulary for the fundamental anxieties about national pride, cultural collapse, and the frightening new moral landscape of Yeltsin’s Russia. (2007: 23)

More specifically, post-Soviet Russian masculinity seemed to be particularly undermined by Western culture and Western men. It appeared that the West had begun to pillage Soviet society at the end of the Cold War for more than its natural resources. Russian women soon became the country’s greatest commodity, compelled to find ‘real men’ abroad. This perceived reality began to conflate Russian male economic impotence with an actual sexual threat. Significantly, it was the perception of post-Soviet society that ‘it was Russian men who had been rendered powerless by the collapse of the USSR’ (Borenstein, 2007: 23). Although alcoholism and economic issues had previously contributed to the emasculation of Soviet men both at home and at work, it was only during perestroika that this problem could be brought to the silver screen and fully acknowledged.

This emerging crisis of national devolution and Russian male impotence is particularly poignant in Pavel Lungin’s Taxi Blues (Taksi Bliuz, 1990). The film depicts a relationship between a decadent avant-garde musician and a tough-guy taxi driver. The taxi driver ‘saves’ the musician from alcohol dependency, imprisonment, financial ruin and self-destruction, only to be forgotten once the musician achieves fame. This fame is facilitated by a black American jazz musician and supported by a major American record label. The musician and the taxi driver’s relationship is characterized not only by a reversal of emotional power and control, but a clear sense of betrayal and rejection. Their courtship and the musician’s eventual infidelity develop a subtext of homosocial bonding that invites an enquiry into notions of masculinity during this period of destabilization. Lungin’s film reproduces a typical heterosexual power dynamic in a new way, exploring it in the context of homosocial desire and friendship (Seidler, 1987: 82–112). By structuring the male–male relationship in this way, Lungin is able to explore the disruption of traditional economic and social norms to illustrate the anxiety experienced by Soviet citizens, especially men, over the demise of the Soviet Union at the hands of the West.

Perestroika

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party. He seemed to be a breath of fresh air after decades of stagnation under Leonid Brezhnev and the rule of the Gerontocracy – as demonstrated by the quick succession of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko following Brezhnev’s death. In this new era, Gorbachev planned to reform socialism, party rule and the Soviet Union through political participation, economic flexibility and détente. ¹ This agenda was described as perestroika or restructuring.

Détente meant that the Soviet Union abandoned the Cold War rhetoric of class struggle and re-established diplomatic relationships with China, while lifting travel restrictions for most Soviet citizens. Military initiatives in Africa and Central America were curtailed. Eastern European satellite states began to flex their independent political muscles without interference from Moscow, and Germany was eventually reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Détente finally led to perestroika and, ultimately, to the demise of the Warsaw Pact, allowing the West a good look behind the Iron Curtain. For this and more, Gorbachev received ebullient praise in the West and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Yet for some in the international community Gorbachev’s perceived pro-Western, non-interventionist passivism signalled the end of the Cold War and the country’s loss of superpower status.

This negative appraisal was fortified by Gorbachev’s failures on the economic front. The Soviet Union’s revenues were largely dependent on petroleum exports and vodka sales. Oil was subject to world prices and vodka negatively impacted the health and productivity of Soviet citizens. Gorbachev had hoped that he could reform the economy by technological modernization and increased productivity, while maintaining state ownership of industry, affordable housing, free health care and education, and subsidies for food and transport. His planned reforms, however, were never fully implemented and the economy remained highly inefficient. Stephen Kotkin writes of this restructuring process:

Most ordinary people had anticipated the onset of American-style affluence, combined with European-style social welfare. After all, these were the rosy images of the outside world, transmitted by glasnost, which had helped destroy what was left of their allegiance to socialism. But instead, the people got an economic involution and mass impoverishment combined with a headlong expansion of precisely what had helped to bring down the Soviet Union – the squalid appropriation of state functions and state property by Soviet-era elites. (2001: 115–16)

In reality, a new class of businessmen, perceived by most to be criminals, emerged as poverty spread among those on fixed incomes, who could not adjust to rising prices. Soon, crime and violence were associated with economic and social success, creating an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. A huge black market existed in parallel with new co-ops and joint ventures and the boundaries between legal and illegal distribution and consumption became blurred. Party officials abusing their positions and criminal organizations quickly filled the void created by this new spirit of capitalism. Gorbachev’s indecision over whether to employ a gradual transition or a more radical shock therapy conversion to a market economy created further economic hardships. This led to shortages of basic goods and a severe downward economic spiral that resulted in strikes and political protests.

Perestroika was a transitional period that eventually undermined the Communist Party and the Soviet Union rather than restructuring it. In 1991 a failed putsch had attempted to restore hard-line Soviet control, but instead swept Boris Yeltsin into power. As a result, Gorbachev was forced to resign as General Secretary of the party and to dissolve the Central Committee. The Baltic states quickly declared independence and Russia, Belorus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, effectively dissolving the USSR. Within a little more than five years, the 74-year-old Soviet apparatus was dismantled and a new post-Soviet society was painfully assembled from the wreckage. Taxi Blues captures this period of transition in which reversals of fortune were more common than maintenance of the status quo.

Homosocial bonding

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argues that there are behavioral asymmetries between male–female and male–male relationships, and that the sexual continuums inscribed in the structure of gender relationships may result in homosocial or homosexual relationships. She suggests that comparative behavioral responses in male–female and male–male relationships are based on power. Within this dynamic of gender and power is also an inherent issue of class status. Significantly, men form intense personal bonds that can be expressed through a female conduit, forming a triangular relationship, but are essentially non-sexual (see in particular Sedgwick, 1985: 25–7; also Greenberg, 1990). Specifically, we believe that Taxi Blues shows that power, gender and class are closely linked by examining the relationship of the two male protagonists from the perspective of homosocial bonding.

Lungin is simply reflecting what Borenstein calls: ‘the anxieties of post-Soviet masculinity in crises, where the loss of empire, the onslaught of the market, and competition with the triumphant West were construed as a kind of male sexual humiliation’ (2007: 78–9). Depicting a male–male relationship within the context of the Soviet collapse, it is not unexpected that issues of economic and social powerlessness would be confused with questions of sexual impotence and ambiguous personal dynamics. The reversal of fortune that occurs between the two men would then, necessarily, be articulated in all aspects of their relationship, which is defined by economic power and social status.

Homosocial bonding in Soviet film

Lungin was not completely original in framing his socio-economic discourse on the homosocial relationship of his two protagonists. One can find instances of homosocial interaction in earlier Soviet cinema. One of the best-known examples would be The Two Combatants (Dva boitsa, 1943), directed by Leonid Lukov. The film tells the story of two Soviet soldiers fighting the Germans during World War II. The flamboyant Arkadii Dziubin comes from the Russian south, while his comrade Sasha Svintsov originates from the harsher northern region of the Urals. ² These two soldiers from very different parts of Russia form a perplexed friendship that lasts throughout the war, which ends with a Soviet victory, filmed long before it actually took place in May 1945.

Evidence of this homosocial discourse can be demonstrated by simply quoting some of the more suggestive lines from the film:

The Two Combatants offers this relationship as nothing more than two young men from different backgrounds united by war. Underlying this narrative, however, is a genuine homosocial relationship, although this issue has not been explored in extant scholarship.

Another important instance of homosocial discourse is found in the Soviet classic Two Comrades Served Together (Sluzhili dva tovarischa, 1968). The film was directed by Evgenii Karelov and tells the story of the ‘military friendship’ of two young Red Army soldiers, Andrei Nekrasov and Ivan Kariakin. Their relationship blossoms during the Russian Civil War, with most of their time spent in the Crimea. Like the protagonists in The Two Combatants, Nekrasov and Kariakin develop their bond of ‘brotherly love’ during a time of great difficulty, but remain platonic friends throughout the film. Scholarly discussions of this film have also avoided concentrating on the more suggestive moments.

The fact that the sexual undertones of these two films and others have not been previously discussed is most certainly due to what Brian James Baer calls the Soviet Union’s ‘widespread sexaphobia’, which repressed the cultural language around sex until the late 1980s. The Soviet regime created institutional and attitudinal conditions that were ‘adverse to public discussion and representations of same-sex-desire’ (Baer, 2009: 19). The point of raising this issue with The Two Combatants and Two Comrades Served Together is to suggest that Lungin is using a narrative frame that had appeared previously in successful Soviet films. The innovation on Lungin’s part, however, is that the relationship in Taxi Blues enacts the social disruption that is being felt by society as a whole. In the two war films, the chaos of war is made bearable by this ‘brotherly love’, while in Taxi Blues, as we will argue, the relationship offers no harbour from the economic and social chaos of perestroika, but rather is emblematic of the troubled masculinity that surrounds this period.

Viewing the film

At the beginning of Taxi Blues, two women, three men and a driver are travelling in a taxi while fireworks burst in the night sky. ³ The intoxicated passengers want to continue their drunken revelry, but cannot procure more alcohol, a common problem during perestroika when rationing was introduced to control alcoholism. The taxi driver, for a price, eventually provides them with a bottle of vodka. He represents an aspect of the shadow economy that existed semi-officially within Soviet society. However, four of the five passengers decide to go home, while Aleksei (‘Lekha’) Selivestrov, a musician, and Ivan Shlykov, the driver, continue through downtown Moscow together. Lekha notes that Shlykov is a physically strong man who would easily survive in the wilds of Siberia. Shlykov is unimpressed and Lekha asks, ‘How come you are not interested in me?’ He invites Shlykov to come to the Blue Note Club, then quickly asserts that Shlykov would not like it because he is not the ‘curious’ type. Lekha thus instructs the driver to stop at a particular apartment block, saying that he will just go in to fetch a friend, and promises to come back and pay double the price. Lekha abandons the driver with the meter running and does not return. In this first interaction, signs of homosocial desire (Lekha’s clear attempts to seduce Shlykov for friendship or betrayal) are confused with economic issues (the unpaid fare).

Realizing that he has been had, Shlykov goes home and takes out his anger by aggressively lifting weights. During this workout, his neighbour in the communal flat tells him about a conspiracy by international Zionism and Russian bureaucrats to ruin the beautiful Motherland. The neighbour articulates the fear that Soviet society is under attack by deviant and chaotic Western forces: ‘And we, the Russians, we must stick together.’ Shlykov responds that he has just been defrauded of 70 rubles. By analogy, Lekha, who is Jewish, thus becomes a representative of the Western, Jewish deviance that is undermining Soviet society.

Shlykov tracks down Lekha at the Blue Note Club and confronts him in the bathroom. Shlykov takes the musician’s saxophone, promising to return it once he has received his money. They struggle and Lekha suggests that if the driver touches the instrument he will never play it again. Shlykov responds: ‘I’ll teach you’ – introducing an important line of narrative discourse as Shlykov will attempt to ‘teach’ Lekha to behave according to the rules and prescriptive regulations of Soviet society. One also cannot avoid the framing of the scene, mainly within a public toilet stall in which physical intimidation and (re)payment are being enacted, with a reference to the oral use of the instrument. Lekha is slumped on the floor by the toilet and Shlykov stands before him at the entrance to the stall. The framing provides a confined space for Lekha in which he is trapped (physically and financially), as Shlykov controls the space both physically (blocking the exit) and financially (as he now holds the saxophone). The parting line from Lekha, implying that only his mouth might touch the instrument, with a sharp cut to Shlykov standing over him, infers a myriad of homosexual stereotypes – oral sex in a public rest-room, possibly for payment.

Shlykov intends to sell the saxophone, but once he learns that a pawnbroker will pay him 4000 rubles for it (to cover a fare of 70), he decides to return the instrument. When he does so, Lekha asks him for money to buy vodka. As a result, Shlykov brings Lekha back to his room and the musician performs a sort of striptease as Shlykov assigns a price to each article of Lekha’s ‘Western’ clothing to cover the debt. Here, the relative planes and orchestration of space are reversed. Lungin selects a shot in which Lekha is now standing near a doorway and Shlykov is sitting (lower) on a bed. The constricted space of the toilet stall is now opened up to a larger, less intimidating space. Although the shot reverses the relative planes of the two characters, a wider focal length makes the space intimate rather than intimidating. When Lekha is in his underwear, Shlykov asks him to apologize for defrauding him and only then provides him with the alcohol that he so desires. After drinking all night, the two sleep in Shlykov’s room, where he asks ‘Are you Jewish?’ and then ‘Even Jews sell out for booze?’ ⁴ Lekha answers both in the affirmative. This solidifies Lungin’s original association between Lekha and the Zionist conspiracy that has brought deviance and chaos to the Soviet Union.

Left alone in Shlykov’s apartment the following day, Lekha takes a bath and gets drunk on aftershave and cologne. Intoxication provides musical inspiration and a naked Lekha plays the saxophone in Shlykov’s room. During his euphoria, Lekha leaves the water running in the bathtub and floods the three lower floors. Shlykov finds Lekha among some drunks later that day and promptly gets into a fight with them, upset that he must pay for repairs caused by the flood. Both men are taken to the police station, where Shlykov pretends that he does not know Lekha and gives evidence against him, but then goes back to the prison and destroys it, saving Lekha from a five-year prison sentence.

After freeing him from jail, Shlykov manhandles the musician, taking his passport, and asks: ‘You think it’s because you’re cute that I sprung you?’ After this, Lekha becomes Shlykov’s ‘captive’ and is to work off his debt (475 rubles for vodka, water damage and taxi fare) by performing menial tasks. This establishes a slave–master relationship between the two. The next scene takes place in the taxi depot. While being berated and instructed to thoroughly wash the taxi cab, Lekha tells Shlykov that he cannot be turned into an animal. In turn, Shlykov angrily wonders who has turned hard-working Russians into animals, suggesting that it is Lekha and his kind (the international Jewish conspiracy).

When the manager of the taxi company finds Shlykov’s ‘slave’ on the premises, Shlykov says that Lekha is his trainee and that he is ‘teaching him the trade’. Here again, the roles of master–slave and teacher–pupil are confused. Lekha asks for his passport back, promising that he can repay Shlykov by performing three concerts. Yet, Shlykov replies: ‘First you have to slave! Like a dog, everyday!’

The manual labor, stress and abuse cause Lekha to fall into a ‘black hole’ physically and mentally. Shlykov’s response is to show his friend how to do push-ups and abdominal exercises. In each of these evocative moments, Lungin fills the shot with Shlykov’s naked torso, heightening his physicality. When Lekha is not responsive, Shlykov smacks him around, claiming that he will ‘make a man’ out of him. There is an aspect of military training in this interaction that ends with Shlykov telling Lekha ‘You’ll be a man!’ For Shlykov, being a man seems to suggest both physical and economic strength. In this suggestive scene there are many cultural elements bubbling just below the surface of the narrative. By making Lekha a real man, he will no longer be this alcoholic, effeminate, Jewish musician, dependent on others for his financial well-being. The scene ends with Shlykov giving Lekha a playful kiss on the head, underscoring Shlykov’s overall power over him.

After another night of drinking, Lekha is again arrested for drunken and disorderly behaviour. Although Shlykov bails him out, he also ends their relationship, disgusted and frustrated by Lekha’s decadence. It is clear from this interaction that as much as Lekha has been humiliated by the slave labour, he has become dependent on Shlykov, who has provided him with a place to live, material comforts, food and alcohol. Lekha pleads for ‘mercy’ and, devastated by Shlykov’s rejection, lies on a railway tracks as a train slowly approaches. This prompts Shlykov to apologize and ask for forgiveness, and the pair are reconciled. Clearly, Shlykov has grown attached to his pupil and does not want to bring about his ruin. It is also at this point that the emotional attachment of Shlykov for Lekha is confirmed.

Once again, they return to their master–slave relationship, which substantiates Lekha’s economic and emotional reliance on Shlykov. While selling vodka for Shlykov, Lekha sees a friend who invites him to the music studio the next day to record some of his songs. Lungin chooses to imply Lekha’s prostitution in this scene by associating him with a street-walker. The young man approaches Shlykov in his car and negotiates the price of the vodka. There is then a long shot in which Lekha seems very small, standing against a wall with big storefront windows framing or possibly confining him on either side. He wears a trench coat, and holds Shlykov’s vodka. The scene moves to a medium shot in which Lekha reveals the vodka as though he was flashing his own body for sale. The camera rapidly moves to a close-up in which Lekha admits that he is ‘without inhibitions’. The entire scene replicates the pimp, his prostitute and the client dynamic.

The next day Lekha goes to the music studio. It just so happens that the American jazz saxophonist Hal Singer is visiting this same day. Singer takes an immediate interest in the music that Lekha plays and this becomes the catalyst that will allow Lekha to leave Shlykov. The scene is telling in that Singer enters the expansive studio from the second-floor music engineer’s room as Lekha is below on the first-floor performance stage playing his saxophone. Singer, however, descends the stairs playing his own saxophone to eventually stand facing Lekha on the stage. In most scenes with Shlykov, the planes of the characters and the camera angles have suggested inequality, but this first scene with Singer implies equality.

Significantly, the liberating force is an American musician with the financial backing of Columbia Records, who offers Lekha the opportunity to play jazz in America. When confronted by Shlykov, Lekha says: ‘Don’t be sad. Anyway, I’m leaving you.’ Shocked, Shlykov asks if he is going far and Lekha responds first to Leningrad and then to New York. The scene is shot in a medium close-up in the intimate space of a bathroom with limited lighting so that the shadow frames the faces of the two, emphasizing the reversal of the master–slave roles which results from Lekha’s decision to sell himself to the highest bidder. It is clear that Lekha is leaving one homosocial relationship for another, again based on social and economic power.

The next scene is a repeat of Shlykov’s aggressive workout that frames his homosocial relationship with Lekha. A stack of weight rises and falls repeatedly – some might suggest, reminiscent of a masturbatory action. Shlykov needs to physically channel (if not release) his sexual tension in the absence of his friend. He subsequently pines for Lekha when he sees an interview of his friend from New York played on a large outdoor screen, and he is genuinely happy for Lekha’s success. Shlykov waits at the airport to greet him when he returns to Moscow, and is crestfallen when Lekha seems not to even notice him as he is being taken to a car by his musician friends. In this scene, Shlykov clearly represents the jilted lover. Lekha no longer needs Shlykov’s economic support; therefore Shlykov is rendered impotent – similar to Lekha at the beginning of their relationship.

This rejection is exacerbated for Shlykov as it happens on his birthday. His girlfriend throws him a birthday party and sings the lyrics ‘You’re nothing without me’, causing Shlykov to reflect on his various relationships. He becomes enraged, accusing everyone at his party of not really loving him. He realizes that for this group of friends (as for Lekha) he is only a source of money. Following this outburst, Shlykov attends Lekha’s concert and is emotionally moved, probably as much by the slow demise of their relationship as by the music. The crude song of the birthday party is starkly contrasted with the innovative jazz music of his friend.

After the concert, Shlykov runs to catch up with Lekha in a throng of fans, and the musician promises to call. The next scene shows Shlykov with a quasi-romantic table set for two in anticipation of a celebratory dinner. Shlykov is once again disappointed when Lekha does not arrive until very early the next morning with a group of his musician friends, and only stays long enough to wish Shlykov a happy birthday. Given as a joke, one of Shlykov’s gifts is a blow-up doll, painfully emphasizing his solitude and impotence (economic, social and sexual). Lungin separates Shlykov in a lone medium long shot that is juxtaposed with Lekha and his companions in a similar medium long shot. Shlykov is completely alone with a ridiculous hat, kimono and blow-up doll, while Lekha is now surrounded by supposed friends and hangers-on. The two shots convey a great distance between the former friends and Lungin purposefully avoids presenting them together in a single shot. Significantly, we remember that Shlykov had intended to make Lekha into a real Soviet citizen. Yet, once Lekha has attained his economic and social prowess, it is Shlykov who is no longer a real man but an impotent Soviet citizen, ridiculed with an American sex toy.

In the final scene Shlykov steals a taxi cab and chases after Lekha and his friends, intending to exact revenge for the perceived slight. After crashing into a car that he thinks is carrying Lekha, Shlykov finds that its only occupant is an Asian driver. A final post-factum summation of the characters’ future lives is provided in several sentences, trivializing all of the relationships. Lekha is confined to detox following the recording of his second album, whereas Shlykov has established a successful co-op taxi company. Lekha’s momentary success is typical of the times, while Shlykov’s business (criminal) acumen allows him to survive in post-Soviet society. In the end, no one achieves true success during perestroika, further emphasizing Russia’s ‘embattled masculinity, wounded national pride and … perennially fraught relations with the West’ (Borenstein, 2007: 55).

Past scholarship

Upon its release, Taxi Blues enjoyed positive reviews in both the Soviet and foreign press. The film received unexpected recognition when Lungin won the award for best director at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990. And yet limited scholarly attention has been devoted to the film. A few short analytical articles focus on the fundamental perestroika features of the film, while ignoring some of the more intriguing cultural issues around identity (see Lavrentiev, 1994: 135–7; Shepotinnik, 2008: 133–4; Pally, 1991: 23–7). Most reviewers tend to stress the political ingredient, the liberating aspects of perestroika, overlooking the confused economic and interpersonal relationships that are integral to the film’s narrative. Sergei Lavrentiev mentions in passing the ‘homoerotic subtext of the plot’ as well as the vague ‘Jewish question’ (1994: 136–7). Marcia Pally notes the ‘pathetic seduction’ in the second half of the film in which Shlykov pursues Lekha (1991: 23). Neither critic continues this line of scholarly enquiry. More recently, Kseniia Rozhdestvenskaia alludes to the sexual overtones of playing the saxophone in Taxi Blues with her suggestively titled article ‘“Blow” into the pipe young man’, but again, does not explicitly maintain this critical line of discourse (see Rozdestvenskaia, 2008).

In her 2009 PhD dissertation on contemporary Russian buddy films, Dawn Seckler suggests that Taxi Blues, along with other such films in her purview, are constructed out of ‘competing belief systems’, by which one of the protagonists must become ‘emasculated, cuckolded, or humiliated’. It is typical of buddy films of the post-Soviet period – those that followed Taxi Blues – to employ a similar narrative structure to Lungin’s – the characters’ differences highlight the failures of Soviet ideology and cause them to renegotiate their own identities (see Seckler, 2009: 104, 119). Seckler does not engage the homosocial aspects of the characters’ relationship.

Teacher and pupil or master and slave

In discussing homoerotic behaviour, it is useful to first recall the cultural legacy of classical antiquity. The ideographic constructions of sexuality in ancient Greece were somewhat artificial and conditional. The active ‘doer’ in the Greek system of love was usually a strong adult male member of the polis, whereas the passive receiver was a female or anyone deemed inferior or a less-respected member of society, including adolescent males or ‘non-citizen’ foreigners. Anyone who was perceived as socially weak, dependent, immature, debased or defenseless was relegated to the passive role. The powerful Greek male citizen was more or less blissfully indifferent to the gender of his sexual partner, as the socio-political status of the individual was a more relevant determining factor in this system of relations.

In other communities, such as Sparta, homosexual relationships between the passively receptive youth and the enlightening adult were a natural part of the social hierarchy. Every successful and healthy adolescent boy in Sparta was expected to have his own powerful admirer who was responsible for the process of social promotion, instruction and education (see Percy III, 1998: 73–95; 2005: 47–8). Consequently, homoerotic sensibilities were intertwined with social and political standing within a society. Sexual intercourse was only one byproduct of a power dynamic that included some element of protection and mentoring. As such, the relationship between Shlykov and Lekha has a certain symbolic meaning when Shlykov himself places it in the context of a teacher–pupil relationship. As noted, there are several instances when Shlykov claims that he will ‘teach’ his friend to be a functional member of society, and especially in how to be a ‘man’. Pyotr Shepotinnik notes this desire, stating: ‘As a generically Soviet character, Shlykov has but one obsession: to teach others how to live’ (2008: 133). Once again, it is the reversal of fortune that disrupts their relationship and undermines their roles of teacher and pupil.

Jewish (homo)sensuality

The original ‘Jewish dimension’ of male–male relationships is particularly relevant in Taxi Blues. The mainly passive Lekha is persistently referred to as a ‘damn Jew’, stressing the flagrant anti-Semitism of the Soviet patriot Shlykov. In this instance, Lekha’s religious affiliation further conflates the two main issues – economics and sexuality. It is the international Jewish conspiracy that is supposedly wreaking havoc on mother Russia. It is also Lekha’s Jewish effeminacy that Shlykov intends to eradicate with his military exercises and hard physical labour.

Colin Spencer observes that the attitude of the ancient Hebrews to homosexuality was ‘complex and equivocal’ (1995: 53). Although a normative ban on same-sex relationships is also found in the Torah and the Bible, the view of old Hebrew culture on the subject is far more nebulous. ⁵ It is known, for instance, that many neighbouring cultures and probably the pre-Israelites had both male and female temple prostitutes (see Budin, 2008; Day, 2004: 2–21; Lovtsova, 1998: 98–103). Homosexuality is mainly mentioned in the Bible in the context of sodomy (maasei sdom). Spencer, however, observes that sodomy actually covered numerous kinds of sex acts not involving vaginal penetration and was not limited to men (1995: 58–9, 110). Homosexual relationships are strictly forbidden in the Torah (Pentateuch). This absolute ban was likely a reaction against perceived threats and a need to combat certain behaviour. ⁶ We may conclude, therefore, that homosexual relationships were not completely alien to old Hebrew culture and, possibly as a result, became part of the Jewish mythos, even to the present day (see, in particular, Rapoport, 2004; Shneer and Aviv, 2002; Magonet, 1995). The ‘femininity’ of Jews was discussed in late imperial Russian society, reaching its apogee in the abundant writings of Vasilii Rozanov. Expressing an eroticized attitude towards Jewry, Rozanov maintained that this religious ethnicity should be generally understood as ‘receptive’ and obviously passive, viewing the entire nation and its males as fundamentally effeminate. ⁷ Rozanov writes:

The Jews represent an effeminate [ethnicity] nation. So, we have to pay attention to this. If there are people among us with a particular femininity, a soft body structure, with a soft face, a soft voice, gentle manners … being very sentimental, etc. then the Jews have this effeminate nature – this national character. … All their voices are usually shrill, squeaky, but even more often [these voices are] soft and kindly intimate. All of their ‘Gevalt-cries’ – this is a mere womanish market-bazaar, with its power, but also with its weakness. In essence, they are not capable of eventual victory as they lack the strength, but they do have the ability for constant, repetitive attacks, in a continuously ‘sticky’ fashion. ‘You can’t really depart from a woman’ the old saying goes – this refers to Jews [as well], and this corresponds to their nation [ethnicity]. This nation [ethnicity] is far more unpleasant than a formidable danger; it is always a fuss with them, like with a nervous and capricious woman. (1993: 247)

Rozanov’s attitude to Jews as inferior and effeminate paradoxically mirrored the provocative philosophy of the Austrian Jew Otto Weininger, who was extremely well known and widely read during the late imperial period. A scandalous book at the time, Sex and Character dealt with nearly all of the issues raised in this paper: male sexuality, the ontological nature of masculinity and femininity, and the transgressive role of the Jews in all things sexual. ⁸

According to Weininger, just as the biological cell has two opposite gender characteristics, every human being simultaneously possesses both feminine and masculine qualities, leaving it to the individual to chose a dominant characteristic. With this, Weininger unintentionally supported many of the Utopian sexual ideas prevalent during this time espoused by Vladimir Solov’ev, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitri Merezhkovskii. Weininger was particularly negative about his own ethnicity. Like Rozanov, he believed that the Jews represented an effeminate type and that all Jewish males were fundamentally woman-like. Contrary to Rozanov, however, Weininger advocated complete abstinence from sex and procreation for the Jews (Weininger, 2005).

The main protagonist of Taxi Blues, Lekha, is depicted as a Russian-Jewish avant-garde musician, a severe alcoholic and, possibly, a classic ‘degenerate’. ⁹ Within this cultural discourse is the possibility that meaningful male relationships might involve both emotional and physical elements. Although neither Shlykov nor Lekha is homosexual, the various cultural strains surrounding homoerotic desire are evident in their relationship, playing on viewers’ subconscious associations. Lekha’s passive behaviour implicitly evokes various cultural expectations (degenerate sexuality, Jewish effeminacy) as well as inherent power dynamics (slave and pupil) that engage the explicit issues of social and political status in a society that has been turned inside out by perestroika. ¹⁰

Triangular relationship

In Taxi Blues there is a triangular relationship between Lekha, Shlykhov and Shlykov’s ‘on-again, off-again’ girlfriend Christina. The film concentrates on the relationship between the musician and the taxi driver, but Christina allows for a physical liaison between the two men, which is forbidden by Soviet social norms. The homosocial relationship in Taxi Blues is framed within a structured institutional relationship that mandates certain roles for men and women, boundaries that Lekha and Shlykhov cannot so easily transgress, thereby demanding that Christina become the agent for the two men to consummate their relationship.

In one scene when Lekha, Shlykov and Christina are together, their drunken and amorous behaviour eventually leads to Lekha’s seduction of Christina with the sounds and motions of his saxophone. Lekha says ‘Women call it the sexophone’. He plays the instrument as Christina rubs herself against him in a suggestion of intercourse. Within this medium shot of Lekha and Christina, a blurred Shlykov is centred between the two, uniting the three in the middle of the frame. As the music enters her, Christina responds with physical pleasure. Shlykov becomes enraged and aggressively confronts the two, grabbing the saxophone away from Lekha and smashing it to the floor. Is Shlykhov hostile because of his straight desire for Christina or because he himself desires Lekha’s attention? Is Lekha a symbolic substitute for all things Western that are seducing Russian women? The immediate object of Shlykov’s jealousy is not made clear. Lekha leaves and the scene moves to Shlykov’s rough intercourse with Christina from behind. This is captured in a long shot further framed by an open window in which Shlykov’s bare butt and Christina’s flailing legs are at the centre of the frame. We can infer anal penetration when Christina says ‘I hate that! Let go!’ The position and type of sexual intercourse suggests that Lekha could just as easily have assumed the place of Christina. In either case, Shlykov wishes to reassert his physical and economic potency, whether with Christina or with Lekha, by the manner and position of his sexual intercourse. Ironically, their intercourse is eventually interrupted by a phone call from the police that Lekha is being held in a drunk-tank. Shlykov’s complete reassertion of male virility is never fulfilled. Sedgwick argues that sharing sexual territory with other men is briefly exhilarating and a way to participate in supra-individual male power over women, thereby forging a closer bond between the two fully entitled males. In this situation, heterosexual desire allows a consolidation of a male partnership in and through the body of the female (on this see Sedgwick, 1985: 36–8).

Less overtly sexual, clothes play an important role in the relationship as Lekha is willing to sell his clothes to Shlykov for vodka, which begins a confused ownership of the clothes and, by extension, complicates the protagonists’ individuality. This has been recently utilized quite convincingly in Aleksei Uchitel’s Dreaming of Space (Kosmos kak predchuvstvie, 2005), in which Konyok assumes the identity of German by reproducing his distinctive style of dress. Such imitations have symbolic meaning if we consider that the male–male bond is usually perceived in terms of space: ‘you are this way and I am that way’, which maintains stable individuality. Male–female relationships, however, are conceived of as implicitly temporal: ‘as you are, so shall I be’, in which two become one (Sedgwick, 1985: 36–8). In Taxi Blues, notions of individuality trend towards the male–female model, by which Lekha and Shlykov become less distinctive, until Lekha effectively ends the relationship and abandons his friend. In this selling of clothes, we again see a confused sense of economics and sexuality. On one hand, Lekha is literally selling his clothes for money. On the other, he is performing a striptease. In both senses, this action commodifies the relationship of the two men.

Reversal of fortune

One of the essential moments in Taxi Blues is the reversal of fortune. It is the moment when Lekha announces to Shlykov that he will no longer be his pupil/slave and that he is no longer economically and socially tied to his teacher/master. It is worth looking again more closely at this pivotal moment in the film, which relies on many of the homosocial subtexts of their relationship.

As noted above, the reversal of fortune for Lekha occurs when he happens to meets Hal Singer at the music studio, where the two connect as equals through music. Singer is a black American jazz musician, implying both Afro-Americans’ sexual prowess, as well as their overcoming social and economic impediments in the United States. The liberator of Lekha, the representative of the Western victory over Soviet society, is not accidental. In Singer, we find both the Western socio-economic and sexual subtexts that have been running parallel throughout this film.

Specifically, American black jazz musicians and dancers had come to the Soviet Union in 1926, during the NEP (New Economic Policy) period, a time of economic liberalization, much like perestroika was meant to be. ¹¹ During this time, jazz was seen as the height of Western decadence, but black musicians were welcomed anyway as part of America’s oppressed proletarian class (see Banes, 1994: 161–7). Many of the visiting performers left a record of their stay in the Soviet Union with mixed-race children born nine months later to Russian mothers. This phenomenon is most recently referenced in Valerii Todorovskii’s film Hipsters (Stiliagi, 2008), in which the female character has a tryst with an American jazz musician and gives birth to their mixed-race baby. ¹²

Singer and Lekha are next seen drunkenly embracing as part of a larger celebration in Shlykov’s kitchen. Shlykov returns after a hard day’s work, symbolized by a tyre in each hand that he has brought home as part of his business dealings, to find Lekha drunk with Singer and others. Again, Lekha and Singer are on the same plane as Shlykov stands above them. Shlykov first turns his ire on his neighbour – ‘70 years on the job’ – meaning that after defending the Soviet Union for 70 years, the neighbour has sat down with the enemy and given everything away so easily. Shlykov then turns to Lekha, who revels in his new-found freedom, acknowledging that he and Singer are ‘brothers’. Shlykov makes a racial slur and is ushered away by Singer’s Soviet producer.

The scene shifts to Lekha who states that his depressed economic situation is the inspiration for his music; although he is considered a ‘freak’ within Soviet society, it is all that he knows (and loves). At this moment, Shlykov grabs Lekha by the collar and drags him into the intimate space of the bathroom. Now, Lekha clearly stands above Shlykov and is no longer intimidated by his friend’s physicality. There is a relaxed confidence in Lekha’s drunken pose. Shlykov rubs cold water in Lekha’s face and they are only inches apart in this dimly lit space. Shlykov asks for an explanation for this impromptu party with a drunken Singer in the kitchen and some others who have just copulated in Shlykov’s bed. Lekha says that he is leaving Shlykov for Singer. Shlykov attempts to reassert his economic prowess and asks if Lekha has a plane ticket, but Lekha says that he has no need for a ticket as Singer has a private jet. No longer can Shlykov hold his pupil/slave in economic and social servitude. To underline this fact, Lekha says ‘You have a shirt. He has a jet.’ This reminds the audience that only a short time ago Lekha was performing a striptease, selling his clothes to Shlykov for vodka. Their intimacy is interrupted by Singer’s American manager who says that he will take Lekha first to Los Angeles, then to Boston, before going to New York. The reversal of fortune is confirmed as, with Singer’s help, Lekha will eventually record and perform his own music, make his own money and escape to the West. The next scene is a repeat of Shlykov’s aggressive and possibly masturbatory workout with a weight rising up and down, at which time he acknowledges that the reversal is complete – that maybe Lekha is a musical genius.

Here, all of the significant themes coalesce. Lekha, the effeminate, Jewish, avant-garde musician, is economically and socially liberated from Shlykov, the Siberian Soviet businessman, by a black jazz musician with the backing of a major American record label. The gravest fears of perestroika society have come true: the destruction of Soviet society at the hands of the West, rendering hard-working Soviet citizens (especially men) socially, economically – and by inference sexually – impotent, while rewarding the degenerate members of society for their suspect talents.

Conclusion

Taxi Blues depicts a reversal of traditional ways of articulating power and social norms. At the outset of the film, the taxi driver is in control of the musician (financially, socially and even to a certain extent psychologically), until the musician is discovered and achieves fortune and fame in the West, at which point he abandons the taxi driver and their friendship. In this reversal of fortune are all the symbolic associations of embattled masculinity and wounded national pride. To convey this, Lungin creates a representational relationship in which the inferior character eventually achieves economic and social independence from the superior character and is able to reassert his individuality after a validation of his self-worth. Lekha’s triumph is fleeting and his alcoholism undermines a sustained career, yet this was a well-known, if not expected, outcome of post-Soviet economic success. The audience learns of his eventual downfall only in the authorial summary, yet at the end of the film narrative proper Lekha is the clear victor. This reversal of fortune imitates the innate social roles that exist in the framework of nearly every relationship, only Lungin has chosen to reproduce these power dynamics in a homosocial context, articulating the economic and social anxiety of Soviet males in the perestroika period. By framing it in this way, Lungin includes all the cultural fears that are resident in the decline of a nation: the fears of a Jewish conspiracy, the decadent influence of the West and much more. Within the realm of male anxiety, Lungin captures many of the fears experienced by his audience over the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union. As Borenstein has argued, threats to Soviet economic and social stability from the West were often articulated in popular culture as a sexual threat to post-Soviet masculinity.

In summation, the turbulent period of Gorbachev’s perestroika disrupted many of the laws of Soviet society, opening the door to all kinds of partisan discourse and Western influences, including previously despised deviant behaviour, thereby raising Lekha above Shlykov in this new culture. Thus the homosocial relationship of the two men is emblematic of the reversal of socio-economic fortunes caused by perestroika. The sexual overtones in the relationship implicitly evoke various cultural stereotypes as well as inherent power dynamics to engage the explicit issues of social and economic status in a society that has been turned inside out. Consequently, Taxi Blues articulates the cultural anxieties of the perestroika period about threats to social decency, economic security and national pride which were contributing to the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union.