Leviathan

Leviathan — the critically-lauded film from Andrey Zvyagintsev (believe me, I’ll be typing that name as infrequently as possible) — is long, slow and depressing. It’s as unwieldy a beast as the mythical Biblical monster that shares its name — and in some ways, just as horrifically fascinating. (Yes, the Book of Job is cited in the film.) It’s also intensely Russian, which perhaps explains the whole long, slow, depressing part in one word. Yet despite its Russianness, I kept thinking that I could see most of the characters and events transplanted to the U.S. with very little change. The concept of a bunch of guys whose idea of a good time is to go out to the middle of nowhere, shoot guns and get drunk is certainly as American as it is Russian. And while the corruption in Leviathan‘s hopeless David and Goliath story is mostly specific to Putin and his government — and the Russian Orthodox Church’s complicity — it could easily be adapted to our own culture. Well, you’d have a hard time fitting in the symbolic whale skeleton since we don’t have the wreckage of an old, failed regime haunting us — maybe.

I am told that Leviathan is a great film. One critic seems to believe it’s a great work of literature (existentialist, no less), which perhaps betrays an … unusual idea of cinema. Another has said it will only get better on repeat viewings. (Heaven forbid.) Personally, I think it’s a good — albeit specialized — film, but considerably shy of greatness — perhaps because it seems so very convinced of its greatness and importance. Zvyagintsev introduced the film to an audience by announcing that he wasn’t going to tell them to enjoy it because he didn’t think that possible. He conceded that they might enjoy the first 80 minutes but not the last 60. I think that’s a nice way of telling the viewer that this is nasty medicine that’s somehow good for you. That may be true. Then again, I keep encountering the idea that Leviathan is often bleakly funny. Like Force Majeure, the bleak I get, the funny I don’t. That, by the way, is not meant to put Leviathan on a level with Force Majeure. Leviathan is so much better than that.

On its simplest level, Leviathan is your basic “little guy fights city hall” yarn. If Frank Capra had made it in the 1940s, no doubt the ending would have found the populace rallying to the little guy’s defense. Well, Zvyagintsev is not Capra, and that’s not happening here. The premise has barely middle-class Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov) trying to keep his small piece of desirable land from being taken (at a ridiculously low compensation) by the corrupt municipal government, which is headed up by the even more corrupt mayor (Roman Madyanov) — an avaricious bully and gangster-like beneficiary of Putin cronyism. Despite the help of his supposed best friend, Moscow lawyer Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), and the theoretical support of his wife, Lilya (Elena Lyadova), this is a losing proposition. It’s not just that Kolya is up against a stacked deck — and his own hot-headed nature and limited intellect — but the fact that, well, everyone in the entire town is pretty terrible. This, by the way, includes the church, which is busy flexing its post-Soviet muscles — and taking no chances with the new bosses.

No, it’s not a lot of fun, but it becomes strangely compelling as it winds its way to a conclusion that’s at once surprising and inevitable. It is at its strongest in its later sections where it turns into a reasonably effective — if thoroughly downbeat — thriller in a pretty out-of-left-field manner. But in the nightmarish world of Leviathan, it’s hard to say what is and what isn’t out of left field — and where the truth, if any, lies. Rated R for language and some sexuality/graphic nudity.