Andrey Zvyagintsev
Leviathan

[Contains spoilers]

Leviathan has the broad and profound breath of the classics. It tackles a myriad of issues with the composure of illuminating visions. With a compact and never excessive plot, director Zvyagintsev manages to provide a comprehensive reading of society, but not only that. The film explores four different settings: the corrupt world of Russian politics, the decaying society that endures this power, family dynamics from two perspectives, the general and the specific one of Kolya's family, and finally, an absolute and definitive existential vision.

Politics. Every aspect is polished with great richness and depth. In the political branch, it is clear that the mayor represents evil, but his portrayal resembles more that of a sleazy pig, “with a fat belly and sweaty hands.” Meanwhile, the true demonic figure, but without clichés, is that of the bishop, who provides a philosophical-religious foundation for the politician's heinous actions, fomenting the thirst for power and tyrannical methods of Mayor Vadim with fideistic assertions.

Society. The social analysis is also remarkable: beyond the easy criticism of alcoholism, the details that demand reflection are other and numerous. From the subjugation of women to the cursory education of children, from the use of weapons to police corruption. Russian society is tragically divided between rich and powerful men, all well-connected, and poor people raising a few pigs to survive.

Family. The family sphere is presented with an overall reading that intertwines with the social one, showing the lack of education for children and the subordination of women. Family friends Angela and Pacha play an important role; in cinematic language, a second example of a broken family suffices to turn singularity into a general norm. All men have the bad habit of drinking, all children suffer from a clumsy education; a sentence from Angela’s son aptly highlights his moral bewilderment when he says to Lilya, “I’ll shoot you because you’re beautiful.”

Kolya's story. But the true gem is Kolya’s private saga. It is not complex, but it presents a deep, calibrated, and unschematic system of characters. As lawyer Dmitriy says, everyone has their faults: each character makes mistakes and performs acts of kindness alike, but the outcome is inevitably catastrophic, as in a tragedy. The triggering causes are not specific; they are rather constant problems of society and families. His wife Lilya lives a clearly too oppressed life to be able to move forward. Adulterous love is the only outlet. Once that is removed, existence returns to being a deadly and unbearable routine.

The son Roman is the litmus test for familial aberrations, although he himself is far from flawless. Lawyer Dmitriy is intelligent but greedy and incontinent, as well as disrespectful to his friend Kolya. Finally, the protagonist is a vastly problematic figure, at times the leviathan of his family, just as his enemy Mayor Vadim is of the city; but he is far from a negative character, rather he is the tragic hero who meets his inescapable fate.

A Job without God. The questions Kolya asks the priest in the finale illuminate the universal reading of the film: he essentially asks what real sense life has if days are marked by defeats and tragedies. The priest's words recall Job’s story and indicate the director's definitive answer to the perennial question of “why evil?”: one can only resign oneself to it. This is Zvyagintsev's nihilistic vision, which, unlike Job’s, sees no consolation even in God.

Style and nature. A screenplay of this value is fortunately properly supported by the aesthetic component. The camera works a lot on stillness, conferring elegance and pictorial beauty to the sequences, often set outdoors in very evocative landscapes. The scarce light fits well with the landscapes we are shown. They serve two opposing functions: on one hand, they amplify the film's dark filigree; on the other, they counteract and resize the pessimism, showing a world that can be beautiful even in its extreme harshness. The final minutes are a re-immersion into the natural world, as if to say that human dramas are just a moment, a piece of the great mosaic of the world, which doesn't need positive outcomes to constantly affirm itself.

Decorum. The camera is used with elegance and empathetic detachment, avoiding focusing on the most scabrous and gruesome details. The adulterous relationship is shown without emphasis, the violence is always hidden, as if out of decorum. Often the tragic moments are framed from afar, attempting to soften human dramas in the natural world, which knows no good or evil, as mentioned above.

Finally, the dialogue writing manages to be terse, synthetic, and at the same time exhaustive in highlighting each of the many nuances of the film.

The massive leviathan skeleton appears only for a few moments, but it symbolizes profound decay, the advanced state of decomposition of a society.