Director Andrei Zvyagintzev
LOVELESS (Nelyubov)
A-
Russia France Germany Belgium (127
mi) 2017 ‘Scope d: Andrei
Zvyagintzev
He who controls the
past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
—George Orwell, 1984, published in 1949
A meditation on absence that takes aim at the moral rot that
pervades throughout modern day Russia with its return to Stalinization,
starting with the family structure, but it’s a stand-in for what ails the
entire corrupt system, with what amounts to a neo-fascist Russian mafia running
the government, feeding the populace a pack of lies on a single station
propaganda TV network constantly seen running in the background, offering only
the Russian view of the annexation of neighboring Ukraine, sending in Russian
troops of support, spouting anti-Ukrainian propaganda, not any different than
the Fox News network that propagates
the same in America, as both have distinct political aims in propping up only their points of view, not allowing
any oppositional viewpoints, feeding into their nationalist sentiment.
This narrowing of interests plays into a less curious and poorly educated
public, but also one that is cynically repelled by official authoritative
governmental views, deemed untrustworthy and uncaring, so there’s a nihilist
rebellion against any and all news outlets fed by Russian authorities, yet that’s
all there is, as all other democratic movements and institutions are suppressed
and eliminated, leaving only a single party in power, defined by heartlessness
and greed. The idea that anyone in this government actually cares about
anything other than themselves is laughable, as they’re too busy funneling
money into their own personal coffers, enjoying their special status of power
and privilege, while making sure anyone that gets too close is
eliminated. This is the system that runs the country. How many
times have we seen Putin arrest oppositional candidates, and imprison or
exterminate people with opposing views, including lawyers, journalists,
political candidates, or former government operatives, even while living abroad
in apparent safety (More
of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead - The New York ... August 20,
2016, Dozens
of Russian deaths cast suspicion on President Vladimir Putin May 2, 2017,
also The
long, terrifying history of Russian dissidents ... - Washington Post March
6, 2018). Under this system, how can anyone challenge the rule of
power? Do we really believe there’s any hint of democracy? The authoritative
tyranny has filtered down to a new state of purgatory, with each new generation
more doomed than the last, force-fed what the government wants them to know,
creating a populace of sheepish disinterest caught up in a paralysis of
political torpor. What it amounts to is a moral wasteland, a retreat into
the darkness, with blighted lives finding it harder and harder to survive in
this wintry abyss. What’s perhaps shocking is the extent to which this
all plays out before our eyes in a post-communist world (where Putin these days
is spouting a fondness for the bygone days of an imperial Soviet Union, Putin
says he wishes the Soviet Union had not collapsed. Many Russians agree.),
featuring some of the most selfish and despicable characters to ever appear on
a movie screen, exhibiting a complete absence of self-awareness. But
there is no hint of gangsterism or oligarchs, instead what increases the level
of toxicity is their very ordinariness, as they simply don’t have the capacity
to care.
Zvyagintsev has had a contentious relationship with the
Putin government, whose stance has been to limit the young director’s influence
among the masses, where his films are seen by a precarious few in Russia, only
about 350,000 in a nation of 145 million, with many openly critical for what
they call his anti-Russian viewpoint. This is in the tradition of artists
and filmmakers, including Ai Weiwei in China, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen
Makhmalbaf, and a host of others in Iran, R. W. Fassbinder in Germany, even
Akira Kurosawa in Japan, where the same was said about Tarkovsky in Russia
nearly 50 years ago, with many conservatives at home brooding about films being
fully embraced and having broader reach in the Western world. This film
is no different, awarded the Jury prize (3rd place) in the premiere at
Cannes. The opening sequence is utterly ghastly, as we meet 12-year old
Alyosha (Matvey Novikov) playing alone alongside a riverbank after school,
beautifully framed against a natural world, yet shortly afterwards he’s the
subject of a horrid parental squabble. Boris (Alexey Rozin) and Zhenya
(Maryana Spivak) are a married, financially successful middle class couple on
the verge of divorce who are utterly consumed with hatred, despising everything
about the other, not wanting to be in the same room, yet they fight over who
should take care of the kid, each suggesting it should be the other, as neither
one wants to be tied down with “baggage” in a new relationship, preferring to
start anew, with no signs connecting them to this disastrous marriage.
Acknowledging their relationship is a failure, Alyosha is used as a battering
ram in a vicious custody case, as neither parent wants to have anything to do
with him, with thoughts of sending him off to boarding school, and then the
army, the Russian method for dumping unwanted children. The camera finds a
distraught Alyosha in tears having to listen to all this behind the bathroom
door, where there are no hidden secrets, as it feels more like an execution,
with each parent trying harder to remove him from their lives. With this
vile opening, what could possibly follow that? What we see is that both
Boris and Zhenya have already moved on in their lives, without Alyosha, each
already with a new partner, showing extended sex scenes, Boris with an
extremely pregnant Masha (Marina Vasilyeva), who seems young and completely
unambitious, perhaps hoping to catch a wealthier man on the rebound, while
Zhenya is matched with an older, wealthier man of means, Anton (Andris Keišs),
perhaps a father figure, living in an immaculately designed house with floor to
ceiling windows overlooking a thicket of trees. Both pour out their heart
and soul to their new partners, pledging undying love, yet clearly leaving
Alyosha out of the picture. Perhaps it comes as no surprise when Alyosha
disappears altogether, discovered missing, where the parents who couldn’t give
a damn are suddenly forced into crisis mode. Unwanted children feature
prominently in Zvyagintsev’s work, including a father hideously abandoning his
son in the opening moments of THE RETURN (2003), only to return years later as
a complete stranger in a weak attempt to reconcile, while a woman is pressured
to have an abortion in THE BANISHMENT (2007) by a husband that wrongly assumes
it was fathered by someone else. Coming on the heels of Elena (2011)
and 2015
Top Ten List #5 Leviathan (Leviafan), Zvyagintsev has established a
reputation for big themes and epic grandeur, all films shot by the same
extraordinary cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, expressing a meticulous
artistic stylishness that is uniquely his own, where he may be the Paul
Thomas Anderson of Russia, though with greater international acclaim and
much more insistent upon a darker, social realist aesthetic.
Of particular significance is the profound innocence of
young Alyosha, the chosen name, by the way, of the youngest and most innocent
brother (almost saintly) in Dostoyevsky’s The
Brothers Karamazov, especially when contrasted against such a repugnant
figure as his mother, easily one of the more vile creatures to ever grace the
screen. While the police are too busy with more severe crimes, giving
them the brush off, telling them most kids return home within a week, referring
them instead to a volunteer agency whose sole expertise is investigating
missing persons. Headed by Ivan, (Aleksey Fateev), the chief coordinator
of the search and rescue team (who can’t help but notice dysfunctional parents
who simply don’t care about their child), they are a highly skilled agency,
showing military precision and expertise, combing the neighborhood, vacant
areas, and the nearby forests, putting up flyers on lampposts or in subway
tunnels, while sending the parents, along with a trained professional, off to
visit grandma (Nataliya Potapova) to see if he is hiding there. This
visit erupts into one of the most monstrous portrayals imaginable, “Stalin in a
skirt,” as Boris calls her, as grandma offers a neverending barrage of
profanity-laden indignation that is an assault to the senses, a rapid-fire
critique of this unwanted invasion of her personal space, laying into both of
them, treating them to seething anger and open hostility until they leave the
premises. Her vicious, overbearing nature is what drove Zhenya from the
home, complaining bitterly on the ride home about what a horrible decision it
was to meet Boris and get pregnant, which was the worst of all possible
choices, exactly what her mother warned her about, constantly berating Boris,
claiming his influence literally ruined her life, going on a rampage where she
reiterates that she never loved him and never wanted to have a child, until
he’s had enough and simply dumps her on the side of the road. This
disavowal of any heartfelt interest in her own child is the centerpiece of the
film, as it runs constant throughout, where no regret is shown for Alyosha, or
the empty space he used to fill, only a narcissistic self-obsession. This
is such a complete contrast to the view of Mother Russia, implying a protective
spirit, an openly embracing expression to describe the indescribable reach of
the motherland, guardian of the Russian soul, always patient and long
suffering, with inhabitants drawing sustenance from her care, including the
construction of statues and war memorials commemorating the dead, where an
eternally valiant and heroic Mother Earth is as valorized in Russia as Madonna
artworks and Mary, Mother of God in Christian circles. Pudovkin’s
landmark silent film MOTHER (Мat) (1926), a reworked adaptation of a Maxim
Gorky novel, leaves a similar lasting impression, with the titular character
becoming an icon of Russian suffering and sorrow. In this film it is a
stark reminder just how casually and nonchalantly Alyosha was ignored and
ultimately left alone to suffer his own ignoble fate, where the parents didn’t
even notice he was missing until receiving a call from the school reporting a
two-day absence. And even then, they seemed more concerned at heaping
blame and scorn at one another.
Born out of Bergman’s SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1974), with
traces of Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960), this film beautifully captures the
barren landscape and chill of winter snow, among the more haunting images in
the film, including a view just outside Alyosha’s window of a snowy park filled
with children on sleds, an almost dreamlike view of the childhood he never had,
yet also perhaps a reference to Brueghel’s Hunters
in the Snow, (Jäger im
Schnee (Winter) - Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien), a painting used by
Tarkovsky in both SOLARIS (1972) and THE MIRROR (1975). Among the more
poignant images in the film are views of falling snow seen out the window, as
it becomes synonymous with Alyosha’s disappearance, perhaps driven to despair
by the ugly circumstances at home, and left to fend for himself in the wintry
elements. Ivan gets around to interviewing Alyosha’s only school friend,
done patiently, showing kindness and respect, revealing a secret hideout in the
woods, which sets the gears in motion. In the remnants of former Soviet
structures that have long since been abandoned, now crumbling in a state of
decay, with demolished windows, broken glass, and syringes strewn along the
floor, even a few chairs and tables left behind, the search takes us back into
the Tarkovsky era, with rain dripping through the roof, showing architecture in
a state of dysfunction and disuse, a reminder of a broken past. However,
the floor by floor search reveals Alyosha’s jacket, but nothing more, yet
viewers must be impressed by the thorough and highly methodical nature of such
a professional search, a major point of emphasis in the film. It is also
Ivan who discovers a hospital runaway and finally a corpse in the morgue that
fits the description of the missing boy, shown ever so discreetly.
Arguably the best scene in the film is the parent’s reaction, as it matches
Alyosha’s horrified expression from behind the bathroom door, as now it is the
parent’s time to weep. What’s most startling, however, is their firm
denial that this is their son (while their uncontrolled emotions show just the
opposite), taking offense at the mere suggestion of a DNA sample, refusing to
believe it has come to this. The arrogance on display is simply stunning,
as there is no debt of thanks or appreciation for all the hard work by
community volunteers in search of finding this boy, which couldn’t have been
more thorough, carried out by ordinary people who rise to the occasion, setting
an exemplary example. As normal life resumes, we see foreign construction
workers tearing down the walls of Alyosha’s room, resembling the abandoned buildings
seen earlier, all of which recalls the film style of Kiarostami shooting in the
catastrophic ruins of the Koker earthquake, especially LIFE, AND NOTHING MORE…
(1992), which also includes gorgeous panoramic vistas viewed through the rubble
of sheep grazing peacefully in the fields, seen through the open space of what
was once a window. Zvyagintsev uses this exact same cinematic technique
to reveal a world inhabited by gently falling snow, the soft snow of
forgetting, literally burying the memory of this forgotten child. In a
brief epilogue, time jumps ahead a few years, with both parents getting on with
their new lives, where Boris shows an equal amount of disdain and disinterest
in his new child, while Zhenya, wearing a sweat suit with the unmistakable
Russian letters emblazoned across her chest, imports little to nothing from the
experience, where the trajectory of Sisyphean repetition is on automatic
repeat.
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