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| (Sony Pictures Classics) |
Andrey
Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan begins with
coastal footage of the Barents Sea: set to a typically foreboding Philip Glass instrumental
(it’s the prelude to his 1983 opera Akhnaten),
violent waves crash against towering rocks. The inherent implication is
something along the lines of “get ready.” While this opening is masterfully
immersive, it also indicates that Leviathan
is setting up to be a grand, all-encompassing work of tremendous scope. In
other words – it’s a gorgeous way to start, if more than a little intimidating.
Retrospectively,
these images group to emotionally and wordlessly communicate where Leviathan goes in its ideas and its
tone. It is not the thoroughly wrenching and unrelenting viewing experience
hinted at by the opening – though it certainly ends there. No, Zvyagintsev’s
approach to tragedy is Shakespearean, in both ambition and execution. Classic archetypes
and richly-defined characters gently fuse: Leviathan
is a work laced with humor and authenticity, meticulously evolving in sorrow as
its subjects gradually realize their fate, and as its intent and purpose creeps
to the surface. The level of control is startling. The sheer scope is daunting.
And the finished product is remarkable.
Zvyagintsev
puts to task Hobbes’ Social Contract, analyzing how it operates between
officials and citizens in Northern Russia. Nikolay (Aleksey Serebryakov)
works as a handyman, and lives with his son Roma (Sergey Pokhodaev) and second
wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova). They are imperfect – Nikolay can be excessively forceful
with his son; Roma openly disrespects his stepmother – but they work through
the day. The director expertly demonstrates the easiness between Roma and his
father; the distant love between Lilya and her husband; and the weary
contentment with which the family live their lives. We get this family,
and can relate to the troubled and persistent dynamics. But their home, located
on a desolate peninsula and built from scratch by Nikolay, is being possessed
by the state: despite giving little-to-no warning, providing insufficient
compensation and practically abusing the affected family, Mayor Vadim (Roman
Madyanov) is given the go-ahead at several levels of the Justice System. Leviathan goes to many different places,
but its core story centers on a man fighting an oppressive state. Deeper, Leviathan explores helplessness in a
reworking of the Book of Job: why is it that fundamentally decent people suffer
at the Hand of God, and how do they exist within a system in which the serving
of justice and the application of fairness is so far from guaranteed?
The
progression of the narrative turns inevitably bleak. Nikolay’s close friend, big-shot
attorney Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), comes in from Moscow to help him out.
He digs up damning dirt on the mayor, represents Nikolay with finesse and poise,
and comes close to, at least, getting Nikolay just compensation for the loss of
his property. But it all falls through – the mayor has him beaten and humiliated,
an act of sadism without consequence. From there, Leviathan practically writes itself. The “Social Contract” is
mythic; a child is left alone for five days with the State fully aware, complaints
against law enforcement aren’t processed so much as they are indicators of
insubordination, and holistically, individuals – citizens – are at the mercy of
those in power. Zvyagintsev visualizes this brutally. He holds still as a giant
crane demolishes the home, stripping away the kitchen table, the appliances,
the family photos. He surveys the coastal landscape, old ships half-sunken and
skeletons scattered. And he keeps the vodka pouring, faster and stronger as his
characters grow more desperate and hope begins to fade.
Here
is the exterior, then: an indictment, a political critique, a visceral
visualization. But Leviathan is a
densely literary piece of work, and this stems less from its Biblical and philosophical
concerns – though they are prescient, and vital – than from its rigorous
characterization and firmly-rooted humanity. So much of this movie is friends
and family contending with their realities, making sense of who they are,
drinking away their troubles and ascertaining their reserved joy. Zvyagintsev
can be shockingly funny in such instances. Joining friends for a day of
hunting, barbequing and vodka-swigging, Nikolay and Lilya bring along some
rifles. But they’re not going hunting – not with the women around. In an uproarious
visual gag, a friend unveils the replacement targets: nicely-framed portraits
of past Russian dictators. When Nikolay asks if he’s got anything more contemporary,
he slyly responds, “Too late for historical application?” There’s a depth to
this line, read with a joking smile – we’re seeing a contention, a way to at
once rebel against and make sense of cultural and national identity. And yet,
this luminously-lensed picnic, filled with friends conversing about work and
family and politics, ends in domestic tragedy: Nikolay catches Lilya and Dmitriy
having sex. He beats up his friend. He hits his wife. And, he returns home and
drinks – more than usual.
But
the hand here is so steady. Nikolay is a classically tragic figure, deeply
flawed yet flamboyant and passionate and loving – described endearingly as a “hot
head” by Dmitriy. Though Leviathan grandly
exposes timeless historical maladies, its protagonist is fighting for the preservation
of the past: his home, which he built, and the land, lived on by the
generations in his family before him. It’s a critical juxtaposition, one that
illuminates our profoundly complicated relationship to history while also
vibrantly texturing our principal character. From there, the film can extend:
we watch as he obliviously neglects his wife, and as she turns away. We see him
internalize that reality, kicking back shot after shot, and subsequently try to
forgive her. This is what he has, and this is what he loves. Zvyagintsev’s
relationships are so carefully and recognizably drawn – and the performances so
connective and naturalistic – that everything unfolding around them lands with
that much more impact. Ideas are nothing without our ability to not only
comprehend them, but feel them. This is so intrinsic to Leviathan, as it treats its epic sweep with consistent intimacy and
an unwavering focus on the small and the interpersonal.
Within
this skeleton of oppressive authority and the “suffering of the righteous” is a
fable that lands devastatingly. We watch these relationships crumble, and these
characters fall. Roma curses out his stepmother, begging her to leave – just as
the family learns the house is truly no more. Again, the overriding sensation
of helplessness comes to the forefront – only now it’s unbearable. The
political and domestic realities meet in the middle. Lilya, tracked with subtlety
and sensitivity as a person of great moral conflict and uncertainty, has been
pushed into a realm of limitless suffering. And she makes a conclusive
decision. For so long, Leviathan is
about David trying to slay Goliath, and within it is a humane and touching
study of family, friendship and community. But it all comes down like a ton of
bricks. With a master’s touch, Zvyagintsev guides his story into the
despairing. That’s the trick: he doesn’t make us feel. He allows us to follow
his story, and go on the emotional journey and the sensory experience. That
image of the machine tearing down the home is so potent and so haunting purely because
of the established shift in family dynamics and kitchen-table conversations. It’s
the natural endpoint – it’s fatalistic.
The
congruence of these images and ideas adds vibrancy and color to the vision. Pouring
and kicking back a glass of vodka is common for each character here, whether in
the case of the brutish and drunken Vadim or the suave and collected Dmitriy. But
for Nikolay, it changes: initially a way for him to brush off the day and any
misgivings with his wife or acquaintances, it eventually takes him over – by
the end of the film, he’s a defeated, incapacitated drunk. And given its source
material, this is also a work that reckons with God. Its subjects fight for “truth.”
Lilya’s final conversation on-screen concerns faith and answers; Dmitriy tells
her there is no proof in God, only in “facts.” It’s a weighty dialogue that
looms heavily as she her world unravels – what does she look to? And Nikolay
can only ask, as Job does, “Why me?” Leviathan
situates fully-drawn individuals in a system in which they can only lose,
in which their fates are completely out of their hands. There’s commentary and an
application here, absolutely. But Leviathan
is as lost and inquisitive as its subjects, as Job and beyond. It’s
grappling with an impossible understanding of God and His workings, of justice
and of fate. You feel Zvyagintsev’s fury as the mayor is dubbed righteous by a
Priest, as his “faith” works right alongside his inhumane actions. The director’s
ending, as ironic as it is unsettling, resolutely confirms his film’s – and his
characters’ – crisis of faith.
Zvyagintsev
ends as he started, on a Glass instrumental, on images of the sea. The sensation
has inverted, however – the unnerving anticipation gives way to harrowing reflection.
In fashioning flawed heroes against an impenetrable system, Leviathan emerges as a cousin to Greek
tragedy or, in more contemporary terms, David Simon’s The Wire. It has that level of ambition, that big, expansive
central contemplation, and that shattering execution. It’s a diabolically-intelligent
conflation of the Biblical, the literary and the contemporary. I saw Russia in
this film, an interpretation that left me both horrified and disturbed. But that’s
a sliver of Zvyagintsev’s achievement. This is scrupulous, careful work. This
is storytelling with uncompromising investment in character and, thus, intense
and enduring impact. It’s also terribly sad. In engaging with its characters
and relationships, and in telling a story with such passionate expressions and
connective language, Leviathan achieves
real, provocative tragedy.
Grade: A