It seems that in the modern era of apathy as baddasses and blockbuster cinema, the most popular method for eliciting an emotional response from the audience is chronicling a notable event through documentary, whether it be the massacre of dolphins in “The Cove” or suicides on the Gold Gate Bridge in “The Bridge.” However, film’s like “Leviathan” prove that fiction can provide just as strong a reaction, if not more so, than the documentaries. The film uses a realist tone, superb dialogue that feels natural and a relentless, bleak portrayal of ordinary Russian life to spur the audience. The landscape is gorgeous, but juxtaposed with the terrible living conditions of all those outside the government bureaucracy and Russian Orthodoxy. This depiction did not go unnoticed, and the controversy it brewed in Russia only makes the film more compelling. Many low-level government officials praised films, while the higher ups tended to hate it, and despite the film’s deserved acclaim, the Russian state did little to acknowledge it.
The film opens with a smart lawyer from Moscow presenting hope for the audience as the scene is slowly established: A car mechanic named Kolya (Aleksei Serebryakov) is having his land expropriated by the government, and it is clear there is some kind of foul play. Kolya receives a paltry amount of compensation. However, from there, Zvyagintsev is careful in ripping away the viewer’s hope. The supreme injustice that slowly suffocates Kolya and his family is outrageous, enraging. Three key plot points, which I will refrain from spoiling, are particularly crucial in the film’s ultimate message about modern Russian politics: trust no one, corruption is rife, the bigger fish always wins. It’s brutal and disillusioning, and it seems the only succor is vodka. Potential sources of justice or support for Kolya: the Orthodox Church, his wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova), the lawyer Dmitri (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), his son, Roma (Sergey Pokhodaev) and the police, but all fail him in two ways, the latter form is particularly disheartening.The people fail him as friends or arbiters, but also fail him in a symbolic way. They fail in what they’re supposed to represent morally. Together, these two levels alienate Kolya symbolically and literally, making the man completely alone in a futile struggle against the state.
The tone of earnest intent and restrained anger present throughout the film is reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s polemics on social alienation. In fact, the entire film is styled very similarly to the best of Haneke’s work. Michael Haneke, one of the two most original filmmakers of the 21st century, creates films that make lugubrious, dense films designed to make philosophical critiques of society. The failures in the film are people’s vices. The takes are done with surgical precision, and a pragmatic analysis of what makes the most effective shot, using both 15-second takes that can snake around a house or faster cuts when they want a dialogue-heavy scene to move a little faster. In either scenario, there is a clear intention behind the editing choices. That thoughtfulness behind all decisions is clear not just in the editing. Like Haneke, Zvyagintsev never holds the viewer’s hand, nothing is gently laid out or explained beyond natural dialogue. There is no expository dialogue, and with the audience thrown in medias res, the viewer constantly forced to evaluate and think about what happened and why things happened. Motivations are often left to speculation, with varying level of implication. It is left unexplained what prompts the affair that spirals the film out of control, while the mayor’s greed and complete arrogance are the clear motivations behind his expropriations. There is a lack of sympathetic characters, which isolates the audience and turns them into cold, objective spectators of the story. It also shares Haneke’s ice cold tone, that relies entirely on the story to convey any warmth or comfort, and there is none. It leaves the film as an intellectual analysis.
“Leviathan” is as ambitious in its scope as its name would suggest. The film wants to get the viewer angry about the injustice Kolya experiences and as a result, take a stand against all of the major forces in Russian society. It does a superb job until the last half hour. The last few plot developments, particularly the last one, feel too cynical for logic—nothing that evil happens to people—and breaks from the airtight realism of the film. Those last moments are too egregious for practicality, and feel a little immature to include them. Worse, they come close to undermining the majority of the film that is so careful and so restrained. The sermon by the bishop at the end is the worst example of the film’s last half an hour’s tendencies. It is just a little too smug on Zvyagintsev’s part, containing no restraint in its all out hypocrisy. Furthermore, the film has the unfortunate proclivity for cutaways to metaphors that are performed too frequently to carry their necessary gravitas. The film sandwiches shots of the turbulent coast around the land as both establishing and ending the film. Its cutaways to those shots, as well as shots of pigs eating among others, are a little clunky, but still effective metaphors for the film’s plot. “Leviathan” shows signs of genius, but is unable to create the result it wants because it knows what it wants a little too well, and that confidence, bordering on arrogance, loosens restraint.
