It
is worth noting Andrey Zvyagintsev originally hails from Siberia, the
traditional banishing ground of Russian dissidents. Perhaps then it is not
surprising dissent is in his DNA. Up to now, his films have shown an affinity
for the marginalized and the compromised in Russian society. However, his latest,
Cannes award winning film boldly critiques the two greatest power centers in
modern Russia, Putin’s government and the Orthodox Church. Rather shockingly,
Russia selected Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan
as their official foreign language Oscar submission (one can imagine several
film authority bureaucrats were transferred to Siberian radio for that one),
but it stands a fair chance of being nominated, having just made the shortlist
cut. Already a recognizable contemporary classic, Leviathan (trailer
here)
opens Christmas Day at Film Forum.
Kolya
is not a sophisticated man, but he knows injustice for what it is. He lives
next to his hardscrabble automotive garage with his somewhat younger second
wife Lilya and Roma, his son from his first marriage. His house and surrounding
land are all he owns, but the town’s corpulently corrupt Mayor Vadim Shelevyat covets
it for his dodgy development scheme. Naturally, he is not inclined to pay Kolya
a fair price, preferring instead to use the Russian equivalent of imminent
domain.
Shelevyat
expects that will be that, as it usually is when the machinery of the state is
unleashed, but Kolya is made of unusually stern stuff. His old army buddy
Dmitri also happens to be a hotshot attorney from Moscow, who owes Kolya a
favor. Dmitri fully understands the law in such cases, but Shelevyat and his
underlings refuse to acknowledge it. The advocate also has a dossier of
embarrassing dirt on the Mayor, but getting into a hardball contest with
Shelevyat is a dangerous proposition. As the provincial dictator turns up the
heat, with the implied support of the local Orthodox bishop, tensions within
Kolya’s family and Dmitri’s mixed motives threaten to fatally undermine the
embattled mechanic.
There
is no mistaking Leviathan’s political
implications, especially when Putin’s ominous portrait stares down from
Shelevyat’s wall as plans each successive abuse of power. However, the extent to
which he calls out the Orthodox Church for abetting the current regime is
jaw-droppingly gutsy (should you doubt it, simply review the fate of the Pussy
Riot band-members after protesting the Church’s support for Putin). Yet, it
would be wrong to mislabel Zvyagintsev as anti-Church, because there is at
least one pious Orthodox clergyman in Leviathan,
who appears uncomfortable with his leadership.
Zvyagintsev
briefly unleashes Russia’s anarchic sensibilities when Kolya’s off-duty highway
patrol officer buddies take him target-shooting using the portraits of the old
Soviet masters. Not so coincidentally, they might be the healthiest characters
in the film, but despite their unruliness, they are largely disenfranchised
cogs in a state apparatus dominated by the likes of Shelevyat.
Clearly,
Leviathan offers a withering
assessment of the current state of Russian affairs, but Zvyagintsev’s critiques
are fully integrated into the wider narrative whole. In fact, the former serve
the latter, rather than vice versa. As a result, Leviathan has the form of a parable, the soul of a Russian tragedy,
and the moral outrage of a J’accuse. Critically, it is also remarkably forceful
when judged on purely cinematic terms. As Kolya, Aleksey Serebryakov is no mere
symbolic everyman. His pain and rage hit the audience on a level that is honest
and true. Likewise, Vladimir Vdovichenkov plays Dmitri and all his human
failings with mature subtlety. Yet perhaps appropriately, Roman Madianov
largely defines and personifies Leviathan
as the buffoonish but ruthless Shelevyat.
