User Reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. It may surprise some that the most relatable of the Foreign Language films submitted for Oscar consideration this year may be a rural Russian re-imagining of the Book of Job with a tip of the cap to a 1651 book from Thomas Hobbes, and so much alcohol consumption that it should carry a Warning notice for anyone in recovery.

Please don't interpret the description of relatable to mean likable or enjoyable, at least not in the traditional sense. This latest from director Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return, 2003) is tough to watch with its theme of the working class vs the government. Who holds the power in this clash is obvious in a case of eminent domain, as Kolya (Aleksey Sorebryakov) tries everything (including blackmail) to hold on to his home and business in a fight against the Mayor (Roman Madyanov).

Religion, politics, and the judicial system team up to ensure the imbalance of power remains in effect, and Kolya's belief in the system slowly evaporates. It's particularly interesting to note how his consumption of Vodka evolves from a shot glass to full bottles as his home slips away.

The story takes place in northwest Russia in the Kola Peninsula of the Barents Sea. It's a dramatic setting with vast landscapes, including the carcasses of fishing boats and giant whales … a statement of what happens to those left behind as times change – much like what happens to Kolya.

As dramatic as the landscape is, the story is actually quite small. It's the struggle of one family against a system that has corruption down to a science. When Kolya asks his lawyer friend Dmitri (Vladimir Vdovitschenkov) to play dirty with the Mayor, he has no idea how this will impact his life and that of his younger wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova) and son Roma (Sergey Pokhodaev).

There is very little comic relief in the film … only a single sequence involving target practice on pictures of past Russian officials, but the story and acting are so grounded that at times it feels much like a documentary. It's always a bit of a cold slap to be reminded of how the righteous often struggle with injustice, but rarely will you see it better presented than this.

The Russian men of Leviathan are drunk and depressed. The rich and powerful seek to oppress them at every turn. The women are scarcely there except to offer refreshment. Got some tea? Got a bottle of water? Should we start on the kebabs? Of course, these pleasantries are a cover for an affair that seeks to rip this family apart. When they go on a camping trip, they drink in excess and shot bottles. When the bottles are all smashed, the targets are Soviet figures of the past. Zvyagintsev, to his credit, does reel it back by not allowing the current head of state's face to end up on that brick wall. That would have taken the already meandering social-political commentary to unbearable levels.

The bad guy is Mayor Vadim, who seeks to force out Kolya and acquire his land for his own developmental properties. What he is planning is not known, but it seems to be something grand and selfish. A mansion, Kolya theorises. A long winded court order lays out all the struggles in a matter of minutes, and condenses the plot like a Steig Larson novel. We are forced to find some sort of emotion in Aleksei Serebryakov's withered, anguished expression (which he does a good job of expressing). In the midst of the evil dealings, and his exasperation at these small town folk not bowing down to his will and vision, there is a scene with a priest that seemingly reeks of an attempt to humanise him. He talks pointedly with a priest as if it was a confession, and is asked about the status of his wife and kids like a pleasant bumping into a friend. Revisiting this scene after the final revelation, it has a different feel to it. They empower themselves with the word of God, and believe that what they are doing is right. They would never kill a man who was attempting to blackmail them, but they do just as much as that.

The Koyla family is afforded less complexity. The son has a problem with the step-mum, as domestic dramas go. There is an affair that does not seem particularly motivated (although Dmitri is a very strong character, and his contrasting actions of fighting tooth and nail for his friend's land while breaking up his marriage speak loudly - when Vadim questions how a prestigious lawyer could be presiding the case, he does not consider the loyalty and act of friendship). The long-winded runtime might suggest that something deeper is created, but much of it is swallowed up by legal talk and incidents that never seem to go their way. Koyla flares up at every opportunity, and this makes its impact even worse.

Serebryakov has a tendency to implicit suggest during moments of great tension. This is somewhat of a hit and miss. In some situations, it is very effective. As the affair is revealed, a young boy runs and yells of something seemingly more sinister. Then we linger on a secondary character, and let the burst fire of the gunshots tell us what has happened. This works because the off-the-hinge violence of Koyla has been previously established, and we can guess what would cause such an extreme reaction. And later, in the same vein, we know why Roma is running away from what he has seen in the basement, and we can link the rape to the suicide. In other cases, it chops up moments of extreme emotional reaction. We see Kolya's haggard body stumble to a halt over Lilya's corpse, but instead of letting Serebryakov react, it cuts away to his shattered face, an undetermined amount of time later. We are made to extrapolate his grief and his religious bargaining is a rather lame scene to make up for it.

This is Job through and through, but for the final reward. We have a somewhat nuanced depiction of the government and church coming together for their own mutual selfish cause, and trying to justify it. This is intriguing, but the common man's story suffers for it. Everything must go wrong for them. There is no judge in to accept their statement. There is no one authorised to adjudicate. Legal pleas, months of weary and desperate fighting, fly by in mere seconds and seems to beat and beat the man until the struggle is all out of him. It opens and closes with the same shots of landscape, the natural beauty and power, the way it has ravaged a ship in its cold indifference. I suppose it is trying to suggest the absence and carelessness of God, and how men take what they want in their own way. The almost complete silence in the soundtrack rings true. It is bleak without restraint.

In the first 30 minutes of this film, we see a man leave his beautiful house overlooking a magnificent bay, pick up an old friend at the train station, give his wife a long passionate kiss, and scold his son in a fatherly way. At the end of the film, the house is demolished, the wife is dead, the friend has betrayed him, and the man himself is convicted for a crime he didn't commit.

'Leviathan' shows the slow but inevitable destruction of a man's life. No matter how hard he fights for what is precious to him, there are always other powers who are stronger. Be it a corrupt mayor, who confiscates his house, the orthodox church, which turns him away when he asks for help, or more in general fate itself. This is a truly Russian theme: when an individual fights against the powers that be, he always loses.

But this is not only a story about one man and his struggle for justice. It is also a portrait of modern day Russia. In newspaper interviews, the director denies that this is an anti-Putin film. This is probably a sensible thing to say, but there is no denying that the film is very critical about modern Russian society. At one point this is very clear: during a fun shooting event, the shooters run out of bottles and decide to use pictures of former Russian leaders as a target. 'The present ones are not ready yet', says one of them jokingly. Also, in one scene, the words 'Pussy Riot' can be seen very prominent on a TV screen.

This society is so rotten, that one form of power abuse is answered by another. After the judges decide that the mayor can demolish the house without paying a reasonable compensation, the owner digs up a scandal and threatens to blackmail the mayor.

At the same time, the film shows how important friendship is in a society without decent rule of law. The house owner is supported by his former army buddy, now a powerful lawyer in Moscow. A longtime friend of his wife's decides to take care of the son when authorities propose to put him in an orphanage.

This film is also a cinematographic gem. It contains numerous beautiful shots. One example is the image of a whale skeleton on the beach - a subtle reference to the biblical sea monster Leviathan, which is quoted by an orthodox priest. Of course, Leviathan is also the name Thomas Hobbes gave the mighty state, which in Russia crushes its citizens 'like insects' - as the mayor puts it.

The first great mystery of this film is that this anti-authority statement is partly financed by the Russian ministry of Culture, and that it is the official Russian entry for the Oscars. Could it be that the Russian state is less oppressive than we in the West are inclined to think? Or is this film so small and unimportant that it goes almost unnoticed by the authorities?

The second great mystery is that it didn't win the Palme D'Or in Cannes. In my opinion, this film is by far superior to Winter Sleep, the Turkish winner. In fact, it is one of the best I've seen this year.

I heard this film was about corruption in contemporary Russia and the crooked mayor was an allegory for the Putin government. The first half of the film fits this description, and I think I preferred this half, even though there was less conflict and sometimes it seemed that very little was happening.

However the second half of the film is essentially a bleak tale of human failure. At precisely the moment when the community needs to stick together to protect themselves, the family self-destructs. The behaviour of the wife beggars belief. She sleeps with the lawyer when her husband is jail, and then fools around at a picnic when she is likely to be caught. She clearly feels upset about it because she commits suicide later not much later. Another betrayal is committed by the friends of the family (the police officer and his wife) who are far too quick to believe the death was murder (and not suicide).

So I think it's fair to say this is a story primarily about human weakness and failure and only secondarily about corruption in Putin's Russia. I think in this time we urgently need stories about communities sticking together to fight corruption. We need far less stories about humans cracking under pressure and turning against each other. I think some people may even be depressed by this film and take away a "resistance is futile" message.

Really disappointed in this film. Though it is superbly shot, and the acting is fine, there are two many unconvincing scenes and underdeveloped character and plot. Little man versus the big guy and loses is hardly a plot line with much to say. We know in every country, but blatantly in Russia, there is endemic corruption. In this film we have big shot lawyer buddy who seems to believe in the law. However he can hardly be surprised that baddie mayor has him roughed up can he? And when he goes back to Moscow, why doesn't he destroy the mayor with his information. The plot line of him shagging his mate's missus so they are driven apart is so clumsy. Why on earth would she risk everything so casually; and to be caught at it on a picnic? When her devoted husband decides to forgive her and start again, why would she then kill herself? Tragedy is a feature of Russian fiction but when what intuition tells us should happen, happens, you ask yourself what's the point of the film.