Horror and Facade: Masculine Identity Constructions in My Stepbrother Frankenstein
The Horror film genre provides a necessary social outlet to alleviate the repressed anxieties of a society in turmoil through the depiction of simpler, onscreen evils. For example, a prevalent social atmosphere of xenophobia produces films about dangerous aliens from outer space, and a masculine society worried about its growing number of women workers will create mythological female demons on the silver screen. One of the best examples of these socially constructed villains is the story of Frankenstein, a creature feared and loathed under the simple principle of “Otherness.” A literal creation of man’s own hand, Frankenstein represents man’s duel guilt and hatred of things society deems “less than human.” Both a question of patriarchal power and social order, Frankenstein’s attempt to assimilate into a society that created his terrible figure is emblematic of any discriminated person’s striving to join a society that keeps them in submission. The irony is that society needs monsters in order to assure ourselves that we are not monsters. It is this negative identity formation that Valerii Todorovsky’s My Stepbrother Frankenstein (2004) ruminates on, examining the transformation of patriarchy in contemporary Soviet culture as informed by the Chechnya war. Both thematically and stylistically, Todorovsky’s film parallels the 1931 film Frankenstein in arguing that the flaws of the creation are in the hands of the creator; paralleled today in the postmodernist Patriarchal order. In this way, My Stepbrother Frankenstein functions like a Horror film because it raises awareness of social instability and deconstructs the mythologies of family, masculinity, and national duty through parallels in fiction.
The plot follows the reuniting of a father and his war-torn son, and the subsequent upset of the nuclear family order that follows. Pavlik’s story is the struggle of a soldier attempting to integrate back into a society which no longer has a place for him, and furthermore views him as “monstrous.” His father, Yulik, is transformed through the prism of Pavlik’s character as Yulik adopts his son’s struggles as his own. Pavlik is at odds with the world, finding invisible enemies in every shadow. Per the masculine desire to defend one’s own family, Yulik rises to his position of power at head of the nuclear family through the influence of Pavlik, yet he ultimately rejects his son and allows him to perish. Masculine identities are measured within their roles of nuclear family and the fluctuating levels of power undermine the perceived “normalcy” of family roles such as that of the father. In contrast with the films of the earlier Thaw period (i.e. 1960’s-1980’s) this film therefore challenges the perceived stability of the nuclear family following a time of war, and ultimately challenges the myth of fatherhood itself. Therefore, My Stepbrother Frankenstein’s central conflict is not society versus Pavlik, but the nuclear family versus a war-infused society. Pavlik’s presence destabilizes the family through their constant anxiety around him, and this tension symbolizes the manifestation of war anxieties in the suburban home setting. Pavlik is thus a meter of comparison for analyzing the changing roles of the father as he attempts to put his family at ease and protect his newfound son, and thereby deconstructing the stability of what he represents: the middle class intelligentsia. As with the original Frankenstein, the monster inevitably reveals that the society’s anxieties are rooted in the instable social conditions around them, and not the creature they wish to destroy.
In addition, Todorosky knows the diction of the horror genre and subverts it for her own film. My Stepbrother Frankenstein’s film style alludes to its horror roots as Pavlik is often framed in close-up angles that emphasize his monstrous features (such as his eye patch or facial scarring.) Similarly, during the scenes where Pavlik is particularly "monstrous," such as when the children spy on him sleeping and discover a prosthetic body-double, the color saturation of the film drops and becomes almost black and white. Like Frankenstein, the character of Pavlik is described by his shadows and scars. This clear stylization of Pavlik as monstrous is so overly emphasized that it becomes almost theatrical. Whereas Pavlik’s character constructs clear binaries of “the Other” and “Us” between the exterior society and his family, the visual style of the Horror film demands that the spectator view him as “the Other.” The film thus presents the idea that the family’s stability and unity are derived from the excision of the “Other,” (i.e. through the elimination of Pavlik.) The end scene of the film reassures the spectator of the restoration of social normalcy while at the same time we suspect the depiction to be ironic: The perfect symmetry of the two parents holding the kids in their ambulance blankets is surreal and unnatural against the chaotic police force behind them. This carefully constructed iconography of peaceful family order is therefore suspect of illusion. Also, the way the camera slowly draws up and away from the scene seems to further the anxiety of dream-like escapism that the finale presents. It’s a sugar-coated ending: the antagonist has been eliminated and we are literally drifting away from the story. However, postmodern audiences are no longer willing to accept the myth of the monstrous Other anymore and clearly see the fairytale ending as constructed fiction. The end of a horror film is supposed to put us back in the real world and safe from harm, yet Pavlik’s terror-filled reality and the effects of war upon Soviet society still linger, made visible onscreen through the entourage of police force that pace anxiously around in the final scene. This modern Frankenstein’s reality does not end at the roll of the credits.