Posted on 01/01/2018 1:59:35 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
Unfolding beneath skies the color and density of damp concrete, “Loveless,” the fifth feature from the Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (after his notable 2014 drama, “Leviathan”), uses a toxic marriage to paint a larger portrait of decay, dereliction and moral detachment.
And oh, his gaze is pitiless. Set in Moscow in the autumn of 2012, the picture sits on the screen with an almost physical weight, its heaviness as much to do with the bleakly beautiful visuals and painstaking pacing as the bitter divorce at its center. Boris and Zhenya (Alexey Rozin and Maryana Spivak) loathe each other, their vitriol pouring over their 12-year-old son (Matvey Novikov) like lava. Sobbing silently out of sight, the boy listens to his parents argue over who will be saddled with the child that neither wants. Then he disappears.
A tone of fraught pessimism accumulates, swelling into sociopolitical allegory as, in the background, the country’s deteriorating relationship with Ukraine plays out on the evening news and journalists are vilified for inciting end-of-days hysteria. It’s a grimly cynical view of modern Russia that’s inarguably blunt (especially in an extended shot of Zhenya, running on a treadmill to nowhere, the word “Russia” emblazoned on her sweatsuit) but no less chilling for that.
Mikhail Krichman’s camera creeps forward as if about to reveal something frightful while we stare, hearts in mouths. The trick is shamelessly manipulative, but it lends the movie an ominousness that’s powerfully magnetic. Boris and Zhenya may have behaved despicably, but their spiritual rot doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When the state loses its humanity, Mr. Zvyagintsev seems to be asking, how long can its citizens hold on to theirs?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sounds very uplifting and edifying! (LOL)
Those Russians - what a sense of fun!
“Is like Gorky says in ‘Lower Depths.’ Quote: ‘Miserable being must find more miserable being. Then is happy.’ Unquote.”
Describes Russians to a T.
Still has to be better than The English Patient.
That kind of talk will get you fired.
You can bet on NYT when it is about to politicize something.
A fictional story of divorce is a death sentence for one given nation for them.
“And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee”
-Nietzsche
HaHaHa!
You’re Right.
And then, of course, one can add “Sophie’s Choice” to that list!
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