Haunting drama Leviathan is a Russian masterpiece

REVIEW: This hauntingly heavy-hearted drama is as much a movie as it is a message in a bottle. So who is in need of urgent assistance?

Leviathan: masterpiece a Russian epic

Leviathan (M)

Director : Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return)

Starring : Alexey Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, Vladimir Vdovitchenkov.

Rating : ****1/2

Look away, or look into the abyss

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This hauntingly heavy-hearted drama is as much a movie as it is a message in a bottle.

So who is in need of urgent assistance? That’s easy: the whole of Russia.

So what can be done to help them? That’s where it gets difficult. Perhaps even impossible.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Vladimir Putin - and the underlings over-compensating for his every presidential whim - Russia is now sealed off inside a vicious vacuum.

A closed space where corruption, greed, paranoia and hate are rapidly using up all available oxygen.

If the average Russian citizen is not prepared to look the other way when told to, it can only be assumed they are looking for trouble.

Frightening ... what starts out as a minor dispute ends up threatening to destroy lives.

Staged as a powerful parable for all that ails contemporary Russia to its absolute core, Leviathan is the story of one man who not only forgets to avert his gaze, but fails to see the hellish outcome his homeland holds in store.

What starts out as a minor property dispute in a remote rural town threatens to swallow several lives whole.

A hard-working mechanic named Kolya (Alexey Serebryakov) has been informed his family’s ancestral shack needs to make way for an urgent building project.

The government pushes a pitiful cash settlement across the table. With the aid of an old army friend who is now a Moscow lawyer, Kolya pushes back against the authorities.

The local mayor begins to take an interest in both Kolya’s stubborn stance, and the movements of his legal adviser.

As for Kolya, begins to take an interest in whatever vodka bottle happens to be in reach.

The saga that unfolds as Kolya unsteadily tries to stand his ground says much about what life has become for any Russian who dares to step out of line these days.

A near-masterpiece, quite unlike any other film you will see this year.

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Originally published as Haunting drama Leviathan is a Russian masterpiece