"Leviathan" - the most Russophobic film of recent times

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

To do this, the Telerama team moved to the city of Kirovsk, Murmansk region, to "see the dying provincial Russia, mired in corruption, violence and drunkenness, which director Zvyagintsev portrayed in his latest film." However, the picture of the real Russian province amazed the French “Everything turned out not as we expected,” the journalists write, “We thought that we would find ourselves in a terrible city where low-browed nationalists in a state of alcoholic intoxication walk the streets, but ended up in a small pleasant town with a population of 20 thousand inhabitants on the shore of the lake."

Having examined the city, the French noted that Zvyagintsev's film has little to do with reality:

“The city does not give the impression of a dying person: apatite is mined here, there is an old, but working ski station, built in Soviet times. (…) The first surprise: the road that leads to Kirovsk is perfectly asphalted, in no way inferior to European highways. In Kirovsk, we saw no empty streets or stumbling homeless people. We saw people who were going to work, hurrying about their business, like in any European city. We have expanded our search area. We went to a local wedding, talked to journalists from Kirovsk, visited the mine and the church. We did not see any general drunkenness or poverty. Children, young entrepreneurs, open people, ready to talk."

8 pieces of evidence that Leviathan is a Russophobic film:

Andrey Zvyagintsev's new film "Leviathan" won several awards at major world film festivals in less than half a year, the title of the most discussed Russian film, and at the same time caused a storm of emotions and controversy on the Internet even before the official premiere.

Ruposters watched the new film by Zvyagintsev and Rodnyansky and came to the conclusion that the film was rightfully considered Russophobic. The creators spent 220 million rubles (more than a third of which are budget funds) to once again show the whole world how bad things are in unwashed and drunk Russia. The result is a film replete with absurdities, cliches and clichés to enhance the impressions of Western audiences and film critics.

1. EXCEPTIONALLY DARK LANDSCAPES

From the very first shots, Russia in "Leviathan" appears in gloomy tones, blurred with a fog of hopelessness. The dull morning landscape of a dilapidated Murmansk town in which the “Russian tragedy” will unfold resembles what we saw in Western films about Russia, filmed somewhere in Eastern Europe, but in a much more straightforward setting.

"Leviathan" was filmed in the abandoned village of Teriberka, which in the Murmansk region is more exotic than a standard of local landscapes. Locals claim (see screenshot of the Facebook post) that in reality their land looks completely different. It is unprofitable to show halftones, therefore the terrain and the mores of the inhabitants look absolutely flawed in the picture.

The authors of the picture explain to the viewer that there will be no light and colors in this film - only a veil of sorrow and hopelessness. Anyone who has been to the Murmansk region knows how beautiful and picturesque this northern region is, but this circumstance interferes with the implementation of the director's task. Zvyagintsev shows only what averts - the skeletons of rotting ships, dirt roads and the skeleton of a whale. Everywhere there is dust, gray walls and the same people dressed as refugees from Dushanbe in the early nineties, fleeing the civil war in Tajikistan.

2. INTERIORS OF TOTAL DESTRUCTION

The main character lives with his family in an old house on a hill and is suing the local municipality for land - the mayor wants to seize the land for some "federal" needs (in a godforsaken place). For greater drama, the director accidentally shows that Nikolai's family does not live, but survives, balancing on the brink of poverty.

The interior of the father's house is abundantly saturated with tattered elements of everyday life from the early 20th century from the Mosfilm warehouses - from bronze taps and plastic figs to a sham decrepit door and worn bedspreads. In almost every episode there are shabby walls, neglect and empty windows so that the viewer does not relax psychologically and does not have the right to hope.

3. VODKA IS A HEAD TO ALL. RUSSIANS DRINK ALWAYS AND FOR ANY REASON

Already in the 25th minute of the film, Her Majesty Vodka comes into play - the patroness of all inhabitants of the province, which will become the key element and the main character of the film for the remaining 115 minutes of timing.

It seems (erroneously) that Serebryakov and Vdovichenkov never really drank - stone faces, picturesque awkwardness of movements, a tense dialogue with mates and a clear “I see no options to put your theory into practice”. But the main thing is that a monophonic image of a Russian person in a state of depression and depression, which has long become the norm, should form in the minds of the viewer.

Naturally, in the film there is an episode with a disheveled drunken mayor surrounded by guards - with a monologue about shit, cattle and the textbook "I am in power here." What else should the main corrupt official of a small fishing town look like? No other way.

Vodka is drunk from glasses, no snacks. Like mineral water. Colonel Stepanych (center) is the complete opposite of General Mikhalych at Rogozhkin's, but he loves vodka even more.

But the Russian people are rich not only in vodka. Cattle children of a “typical Russian city” are homeless in the local ruined church, smoke like steam locomotives, telling each other vile jokes, and jam the beer. For 80 million of state money allocated to Rodnyansky and Zvyagintsev, it was necessary to show that the new generation of the accursed land was spoiled worse than the previous ones.

Grind again. An episode with a drunk traffic cop who is going to drive a network because he is “his own traffic police”.

A walking wife returns home with the expression of both a battered dog and a Dachau prisoner. Waving a glass without a snack, the heroine asks her drunken cuckold husband if he wants a child. The director apparently borrowed the image of the unfortunate Russian woman from Turgenev or Tolstoy.

The hero crawls into the ruined temple and again kisses the bottle. This is how the suffering of a typical Russian person in a typical Russian city should look like, according to the creators of the picture.

Problems? We must also drink vodka. After all, the provincial Russian cattle is the only way to cope with problems.

4. ROT AND DIRT IS IN EVERY RUSSIAN PERSON

The most subtle thesis in "Leviathan" - almost all the heroes of the film turn out to be with some kind of flaw. First, the authors immerse the characters in the hangover experience of adultery. After all, all Russian people are pigs, capable of plunging into the sin of betrayal and adultery in the first place against the background of great problems. For this, an episode was invented under the working title "While the husband is in prison, the wife sleeps with his best friend."

Meanwhile, at the other end of the “typical Russian city”, a gang of corrupt municipalities with insolent mugs decides how the protagonist and his insolent lawyer will be quartered, because “elections are on the way” (the electoral process in Russia is about time to dust little-known poor fellow, according to Zvyagintsev).

5. The torment of heroes stuck in the grinders of black Russian reality

When a semantic failure occurs in the plot of Leviathan, Zvyagintsev introduces into the picture extended episodes depicting the motionless faces of the heroes staring into the distance (that is, into the emptiness of reality). Doom, powerlessness, hopelessness and all-consuming black routine - nothing else can be read in their eyes.

6. FINAL: EVIL WONS, CANNOT HOPE

The corrupt judges read out the verdict to the sober and sad protagonist. The finale drives the final nail into any hopeful thoughts and aspirations for a Russian person.

According to the authors, the script for "Leviathan" is inspired by the story of American Marvin John Himeyer, who ten years ago challenged bureaucratic arbitrariness and corruption with a bulldozer - he sheathed his car with armor, immured himself inside and began to demolish the buildings of his offenders.

The only problem is that Himeyer, if a film was made about him in the United States, would appear before the viewer in the guise of a new national hero, a fighter for justice. In the Russian version from Zvyagintsev, the main character is the standard of inferiority and insignificance, an alcoholic, a fool, a cuckold, the personification of all conceivable and inconceivable stereotypes about a Russian person.

7. CHURCH - SOURCE AND GUARANTEE OF EVIL

In the end - a ten-minute sermon by the priest about the events taking place in the world, the victories of the Russian people over the filth, and so on. The priest is portrayed as a political instructor, hiding the true problems and pain of people.

All the city's corrupt officials who have just ruined the life of an ordinary Russian peasant and have taken away his house are attentively listening to a long sermon. The injustice is not just all-consuming - it is covered and justified by the cleric, which evokes the expected emotions in the viewer regarding the clergy and their mission.

The service ends, and the viewer realizes that on the site of the destroyed house of the protagonist, not a palace for the mayor was built at all, but a small but solid temple for the city elite. The mayor is happy, and the visiting top officials of the region are also happy. As a result, the church, as an institution, according to the authors' conception, turns out to be almost an even more terrible evil than corrupt officials in power and lured bandits.

8. RUSSIA OF LEVIAFAN - RUSSIA SITTING

At the end of the credits - a sudden gratitude to the founders of the movement “Sitting Russia” Olga Romanova and her husband Alexei Kozlov for “informational and friendly support”. The work on the script took place under the influence of people who prefer to consider Russia as one large zone, and everyone who does not share identical views as obedient slaves in the form of a convict. And that explains a lot.

You can draw your own conclusions if you watch the Leviathan movie online below: