God does not exist in power, but in truth" - Leviathan
In 2015, a Russian director was invited to China to serve as the chairman of the jury of the main competition unit of the 18th Shanghai International Film Festival. This is Andrei Sarkinsev, who has gained international fame in recent years. If it is said that Sagintsev is another national treasure director of Russia (including the former Soviet Union) after Tarkovsky and Sokolov, it is no exaggeration: after his first film came out, he Became a frequent visitor to major film festivals around the world.
Like those predecessors, Sarkinsev's films have never gone through the pattern of commercial films, and the cruel social reality and the scale of political criticism revealed in his films are even more astounding.
Released in 2014, Leviathan, which won the Oscar, Cannes, Golden Globe and many other international awards in one fell swoop, is one of them.
The story tells the experience of a family being forcibly demolished by the government to defend their rights, and waiting for their family to be destroyed and their wives separated... Let's take a look at the shock of this movie. "The cruel picture of "Dostoevsky""
Probably the style of brutal realism has long been buried in the DNA of the Russian nation. The indifference, the dark, the closed, the hatred in Dostoyevsky's novels are also present in Russian films, just as the weather in that country is wet and cold. "Leviathan" undoubtedly also focuses on these elements at the bottom. Looking at that gray-blue picture frame by frame, it is shocking without rendering.
Undoubtedly, those people have no rights and no future, from children to adults, from alcoholics to intellectuals...
"Conflicts intensify layer by layer in reality"
The camera lens of Sarkinsev's film moves slowly, and the real feeling is like a documentary, but its contradictions and dramatic tensions are progressively progressive in the middle of the flat and straightforward narrative, which makes people worry. Few directors are as adept at extracting dramatic stories from reality as Sarkinsev.
From his first film "Return", to later "Exile Love", "Irina"... Under his lens, it seems that every ordinary family and life hides crimes and murders. And this kind of murder is often difficult to predict and find out the truth in life. The heroine in "Leviathan" eventually died mysteriously, and the audience still couldn't figure out whether it was suicide or homicide at that time. The only thing we can know is that it is only the people at the bottom who ultimately bear the consequences of death.
"Large-scale Lens Language"
If you watch this "Leviathan" from the beginning, you must not believe that such a large-scale politically oriented film, the investor came from the "Russian Ministry of Culture"! Because the director pointed the bullseye directly at the current rulers and the Holy See in Russia! Let's take a look at the pictures that we can't even imagine:
"Ancient Greek Tragedy"
The realism value of "Leviathan" is unquestionable, it exposes the current living conditions of ordinary people in Russia and the darkness of politics and religion; however, it is also a rare work of art: from the conception of the script to the use of film language, And then to the setting of the characters' fate... "Leviathan" is undoubtedly of a high standard! Just imagine in the play: human rights defenders eventually became murderers; human rights lawyers eventually became mistresses who were yelled at by everyone; and those officials who demolished houses eventually became "Christ's darlings"... This also makes this film unique. With a kind of "ancient Greek tragedy" temperament.
For more classic movie analysis, please pay attention to [Friday Literature and Art]
View more about Leviathan reviews
