Movie Review: Loveless

Loveless **** / *****

Directed by: Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Written by: Oleg Negin and Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Starring: Maryana Spivak (Zhenya), Aleksey Rozin (Boris), Matvey Novikov (Alyosha), Marina Vasileva (Masha), Andris Keiss (Anton), Aleksey Fateev (Ivan), Artyom Zhigulin (Kuznetsov), Natalya Potapova (Mat Zheni), Anna Gulyarenko (Mat Mashi).

 

Loveless, the new film by Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev (whose last film Leviathan was even better) is many things at once. It is a film that deepens as it goes along, and becomes a portrait of modernity and technology and parenting, but also of a modern Russian society that is fully of apathy. The government institutions in the film are useless and uncaring – but then again, so are the parents. The film takes place mostly in 2012 – and the annexation of Crimea, and the rising tensions with Ukraine, play out in the background – on news reports, and TV – where they go half listened to or ignored. On one side there is an increasingly intolerant religious beliefs being forced down upon people, and on another side there is status and social climbing. All of these are contributing factor when a child goes missing.

 

That child is Alyosha, and his parents Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are the main characters in the film. Their marriage is all but over when the film begins – they’re trying to sell their apartment, and cannot wait to move on with their lives apart from each other. She’s found an older, richer boyfriend, and wants to move up the social ladder. He’s found a younger, more docile woman, who he has already got pregnant. They argue – loudly – because neither one of them want to take Alyosha – he’d be an inconvenience to them in their new lives, and would just get in the way. Zhenya is openly cruel to her son – saying he cries all the time to strangers looking at the apartment. IF Boris talks with him at all, we don’t see it. Alyosha knows very well he’s not wanted. When he does go missing, neither of his parents notice for two days – they’re busy off in their new lives, and forget about their old one. The police are no help at all, so they reach out to a group of civilian volunteers, who conduct the investigation themselves. This involves a lot of searches of cold apartment buildings, the surrounding forest, and an abandoned Soviet facility that has fallen into disrepair.

 

When the film opens, you think that both Zhenya and Boris are monsters – and to be honest, my opinion of them didn’t really grow more favorable throughout the film. Yet, what Zvyagintsev and his actors have done is to make more human throughout the film. The film doesn’t forgive their actions – but it does show how perhaps they became the people they have become. Boris works for a tech firm, in which he will be fired if anyone discovers he has had a divorce, so he is hoping that a quick divorce, and replacement of one wife and child with another will help. Zhenya is rarely without her phone, and takes many selfies throughout the film (she is hardly alone), and is in a world in which a woman’s primary economic power is still her body – which she uses for own security with her new partner, a rich, lonely man who tags along after her. When we meet her mother (played by Natalya Potapova in a memorable one scene performance), we understand even more why she married Boris in the first place.

 

Loveless is a heavy film – it is an emotional gut punch at times, including one of the most unforgettable shots of the year, where we see just how much Alyosha knows about his parents. It doesn’t get lighter throughout the film (there is only one minor moment of humor - a conversation about a fake wife Boris has with a co-worker). The rest of the film is a document of suffering – much like Leviathan was – and how easy it is for that suffering to go unnoticed, lessons unlearned, and for people to go back to their lives. The end of the film doesn’t off much in the way of way of hope for the future, or that anyone learned from the past. It is a film that once again confirms just how good Zvyagintsev is as a filmmaker – he’s one of the best around at combining the personal and the politic – with devastating results.

Movie Review: Leviathan

Leviathan
Directed by: Andrey Zvyagintsev.
Written by: Oleg Negin & Andrey Zvyagintsev.
Starring: Aleksey Serebryakov (Koyla), Elena Lyadova (Lilya), Vladimir Vdovichenkov (Dmitriy Seleznyov), Roman Madyanov (Vadim, the Mayor), Sergey Pokhodaev (Roma), Sergey Bachurskiy (Stepanych), Anna Ukolova (Angela), Aleksey Rozin (Pacha).

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan is a modern day take on the Book of Job – about a man who finds out the hard way that you cannot fight City Hall. It is a film about the corruption that is deep seeded in Russia, how the government can pretty much do whatever they want, how they hide behind the Russian Orthodox Church, and the little guy doesn’t have a chance. Early in the film, there is a scene where the main character, Koyla (Aleksey Serebryakov), goes to court to try and fight a land grab by the local mayor. The mayor wants the land, for reasons that aren’t very clear, but clearly have no real reason accept that he can, and he wants it, and is using the courts to push through an eminent domain ruling, that will allow the city to buy the land at a reduced cost. Koyla is in the right, but it doesn’t matter. The court reporter reads the verdict – at rapid fire speed, but still in a monotone voice, and it becomes clear that everyone just wants to get the hell out of there – and that they never really took Koyla’s case seriously. This scene, like much of the rest of the movie, is tragic in its way – but also darkly funny. The verdict is read for so long that it becomes funny with how ridiculous it all is.

Leviathan is clearly an allegory – and quite clearly aimed at the heart of Russian society, where the little guy is going to get crushed by those with power, and they have no chance to win. The film was selected by Russian for the Foreign Language Film Oscar race this year – and it may well win – but has also been condemned by the Russian government, who do not like the way they are portrayed (obviously). The Mayor, Vadim (Roman Madyanov) is an obese, drunken, profane lout – who is corrupt, and everyone knows it, but no one can do anything about it. He is good friends with the high ups in the Russian Orthodox Church – and meets regularly with an ornately dressed member of the clergy, who tells him not to worry. Koyla has tried to fight Vadim and his land grab through proper channels – and failed – so now his friend and lawyer from Moscow, Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), has told him it’s time to fight dirty. He has some dirt on the mayor, and goes to him to let him know that if he doesn’t pay Koyla a lot more for his land, that all his dirty laundry will be exposed. Vadim doesn’t seem all that worried – and the rest of the movie proves just why that is.

But as much as Leviathan is about modern day Russia, it is far from just a political screed, given to grandstanding and speechmaking – both of which are thankfully lacking in the film. It remains a very personal story about Koyla – and how much misery is visited upon him through the course of the movie. But Koyla is far from innocent in his own downfall – he’s as much of a drunk as Vadim is, and has a hair trigger temper that gets him into trouble. While the film may be a modern day take on The Book of Job – Koyla is hardly an innocent being tested from some largely purpose – he’s just a little guy getting screwed.

Zvyagintsev introduces some interesting plot developments in the second half of the film – many involving Koyla’s second wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova), who remains the most fascinating and ambiguous character in the movie – because Zvyagintsev doesn’t attempt to explain all of her behavior – much of which is what sets off Koyla’s downfall. She is younger than Koyla – and a beauty – but she’s working a horrible job at the fish factory, and basically raising Koyla’s son teenage Roma (Sergey Pokhodaev) with little help from him – since he’s always either drunk, angry or away – and sometimes all three at once. The movie is, in some ways, as much her tragedy as Koyla’s – and the film ends with a key mystery not finally resolved.

Leviathan is, in some ways, some fairly heavy going. The film clocks in and two hours and twenty minutes, and there are more misery in the movie than in most films you will see. But unlike some of Zvyagintsev’s previous films, which felt a little too heavy handed, a little too obsessed with all the misery, Leviathan finds the right mixture between that misery, its humanity, its allegorical content and some very dark humor. The film is a dark tragedy – but it also highlights the absurdity of it all. And it’s one of the best films of 2014.

DVD Review: Elena

Elena

Directed by: Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Written by: Andrey Zvyagintsev & Oleg Negin.

Starring: Nadezhda Markina (Elena), Andrey Smirnov (Vladimir), Elena Lyadova (Katerina), Aleksey Rozin (Sergey).

Elena is a film that I found to full of surprises. When the movie began, I thought I knew precisely where everything was going to go – and why we would end up there. And while the events of the movie play out pretty much how I expected them to, their meaning is a hell of lot deeper, and more troublesome, than I expected. And I mean that as a compliment. I thought this was going to be another screed about the rich being greedy, and the poor having to scratch and claw their way for everything – but it’s much more than that.

The film stars Nadezhda Markina in the title role, and it’s a remarkably subtle performance. Years ago, when she was a nurse, she had to take care of the rich Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov) in his home. Their relationship has changed over the years, but only in its name, as Elena is no longer his nurse but his wife. But they still have separate bedrooms, and she still pretty much waits on him hand and foot. Vladimiri is rich, and Elena is not, and even though they are married, that hasn’t changed. The money is still his and his alone. Yes, he supports her – but only her. He doesn’t want her to give any money to her son from a previous marriage – although she does give him her pension since Vladimir supports her. Even when she comes to him saying she needs money to help her grandson out – if he cannot afford to pay for college, which his family with an unemployed father and a new baby at home cannot, he’ll have to join the army – Vladimir rejects the idea. Her son should support his own family – Vladimir married Elena, not her whole family. When Vladimir has a heart attack, he decides that it is finally time to draw up a will. Most of the money will go to his single, childless daughter Katerina (Elena Lyadova), but Elena will be given an annuity with monthly payments which he is sure will be more than enough to see to her needs. He tells Elena this the day before his lawyer is going to come to see him and draw up the will. So what do you think Elena will do?

There are certainly elements of noir at play in this movie – Roger Ebert suggests that the movie could have been made in Hollywood in 1940s with Barbra Stanwyck in the title role, although I find it hard to believe than Stanwyck would ever play a woman who allows herself to be treated like a doormat like Elena does. The film did call to mind Mildred Pierce however – about a woman who sacrifices everything for her ungrateful bitch of a daughter. And writer-director Andrey Zvyagintsev referenced Woody Allen’s Match Point as an inspiration – that film of course was another film about murder and class warfare, which ultimately ends with the main character getting away scot free to start his new life.

But Elena is more than a noir as well. It becomes a film about modern Russia – just a few decades removed from Communist rule, this Russia is still not a place you would to live. Vladimir’s house is Moscow is big and modern – but also cold and unfeeling, just like he is. Yes, this is a movie where the rich man is a greedy bastard – he could easily afford to help his wife, but won’t. It’s his money, he earned it, and he’s keeping it. But the poor don’t come off much better. Elena’s son, Sergey (Aleksey Rozin), really does seem to be the lazy, good for nothing layabout that Vladimir accuses him of being. His pretty wife seems a little dull and certainly not to bright – it’s hard to argue with Vladimir when he says if they cannot afford to have children, they should stop having them. And the grandson Sasha, is a violent, lazy, ungrateful brat. You could feel sympathy for these people if they were working hard to try and make ends meet, but they aren’t. They’re looking for a handout.

But there are two characters who are more complicated than they at first appear to me. One is, of course, Elena, who surprises herself by what she is capable of doing – and for a while, you feel good for her as she seems to want to stop being used as a doormat like Vladimir has been doing for years now. But then she falls right back into another smothering, domestic life – one that is perhaps even worse than the one she was living. The other character is Katerina, Vladimir’s daughter. We get a first impression of her just during a conversation between Vladimir and Elena – where he accuses her of being “just like her mother” and only caring about life’s luxuries and not the work that needs to be done to get them. And Elena is bitter with her because she doesn’t have to work – she has everything handed to her. When we first meet Katerina, we seem to have our suspicions about her confirmed – that she is nothing but a spoiled, lazy rich kid. But her first appearance is in a conversation between her and Elena – who obviously doesn’t like her. When she has a conversation with her dad, she comes across as much more sympathetic and likable – you almost feel sorry for her as she is trying to turn her life around. Besides, it’s not like she’s wrong about Elena or why she married her father.

Elena turns out to be a much more complex film than it appears to be at the beginning. What could have just been another modern noir, but this one is Russian, becomes something greater than that – and more complex. This is a film to track down.

Movie Review: New York, I Love You

New York, I Love You ***
Directed by: Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Scarlett Johansson, Joshua Marston, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner, Andrei Zvyagintsev, Fatih Akin, Randall Balsmeyer, Shekhar Kapur, Mira Nair.
Written By: Emmanuel Benbihy, Hall Powell, Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Alexandra Cassavetes, Hu Hong, Shunji Iwai, Olivier Lécot, Joshua Marston, Suketu Mehta, Yao Meng, Anthony Minghella, Jeff Nathanson, Natalie Portman, Stephen Winter, Andrei Zvyagintsev.
Starring: Carlos Acosta (Dante), Eva Amurri (Sarah), Kevin Bacon (Tom), Justin Bartha (New Yorker), Rachel Bilson (Molly), Orlando Bloom (David), James Caan (Mr. Riccoli), Richard Chang (Mr. Su), Hayden Christensen (Johnny), Julie Christie (Isabelle), Bradley Cooper (Gus), Chris Cooper (Alex), Cesar De León (Dominican), Drea de Matteo (Lydia), Andy Garcia (Professor), Taylor Geare (Teya), Carla Gugino (Woman on the bench), Ethan Hawke (Smoking Man), Juri Henley-Cohn (Ali), John Hurt (Waiter), Andy Karl (Evan), Irfan Khan (Mansuhkhbai), Shia LaBeouf (Jacob), Cloris Leachman (Mitzie), Blake Lively (Girlfriend), Emilie Ohana (Zoe), Natalie Portman (Rifka), Christina Ricci (Camille), Robert d Scott (Du-Rag), Qi Shu (Chinese woman), Maggie Q, (Smoking Woman), Gurdeep Singh (Badal), Olivia Thirlby (Wheelchair Girl), Goran Visnjic (Man on the bench), Eli Wallach (Abe), Saul Williams (Rap artist), Robin Wright Penn (Anna), Anton Yelchin (Guy at Prom), Burt Young (Landlord), Ugur Yücel (Painter).

The so called “omnibus” movies have always seemed better on paper then they end up being in practice. The idea of getting together a group of great directors and stars and making a series of short films about some loosely connected subject matter always seems like a can’t miss proposition. But the reality is that most of these movies are rather forgettable.

In 2007, Paris Je T’Aime proved to one of the rare exceptions to the rule. Set in Paris, the film was a series of shorts by directors such as the Coen Brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne and Wes Craven among others. Bolstered by their success, the producers behind the film decided to do the same thing for New York. The results, while not quite as strong as Paris Je T’Aime (no doubt because the directors involved are not quite as good), overall, it is an enjoyable movie.

As it almost mandatory in reviews of these movies, it becomes necessary to tell the reader which films work and which ones do not. The single best segment in the movie belongs to Yvan Attal, in which Ethan Hawke tries hard to seduce Maggie Q. on the sidewalk. The film is a quirky, funny little gem that has more laughs than many feature length films. I also quite admired Scarlet Johansson’s segment, shot in gorgeous black and white, about a lonely man (Kevin Bacon) who takes the subway out to Staten Island. The segments by Brent Ratner, with Anton Yelchin taking a wheelchair bound Olivia Thirlby to the prom, Wen Jiang with Hayden Christenson as a pickpocket trying to pick up Rachel Bilson away from Andy Garcia, Joshua Marton with Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as a bickering old couple, Shunji Iwai about Orlando Bloom as a film composer becoming inspired by the voice of Christina Ricci on the phone and Randall Ballsmeyer with Chris Cooper and Robin Wright Penn as two people who meet on the street are all enjoyable, but not groundbreaking.

I was less impress by the segments by Allen Hughes with Drea De Matteo and Bradley Cooper mindlessly talking in voiceover about a potential meeting, Faith Akin, about a painter who gets inspired by a beautiful girl in a Chinese grocery store, and Mira Nair, but mainly because in her segment she has the great Irfan Khan and Natalie Portman, and doesn’t give them anything interesting to say to each other or do.

Like Johansson, Portman also contributes a segment as director, but unlike Johansson she shows no real aptitude towards filmmaking, making a pretentious, muddled mess of a film about a young father with his child. But it’s nothing compared by Andrei Zvyagintsev’s segment, which is even more pretentious, and takes place almost entirely through the lens of a camcorder of a teenager spying on a crying couple that he cannot hear. But sadly, Shekhar Kapur’s segment, which he took over from the late Anthony Minghella’s, is by far the worst, with Julie Christie as an aged singing star staying at a hotel where a limping Shia LaBeouf is the porter, and a possible Jesus figure. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Overall, I enjoyed the film quite a bit. It doesn’t really mean anything, and doesn’t reach a level of true greatness, but overall, it is fun way to spend a couple of hours. The good thing about these movies is that when you don’t like one segment, it doesn’t last more than 10 minutes.

Note: This review was written based on a screening at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. The theatrical version has eliminated two of the segments – those directed by Scarlett Johansson and Andrei Zvyagintsev. I notice that they eliminated the two segments with the least amount of dialogue in them. As you can see from my review, I really disliked the Zvygintsev segment, so I think the movie will actually be improved without that one, but it’s a real shame that Johansson is eliminated because it was one of my favorites – with gorgeous black and white cinematography, a real command of cinema language, and a touching, wordless performance by Kevin Bacon. Apparently, these will show up on the DVD version.