Kolya lives with his wife and son in an isolated place at the edge of a lake. He is a mechanic. Kolya is a victim of bullying from the mayor of the village, for that he should sell his house and that he can build up something that would bring in money.
Kolya made a call to Dmitry, old friend and lawyer, to defend justice against the politician corrupt. Dmitri first uses the legal argument, before coming to threats to the least disorders.
LEVIATHAN starts in a rather classic for a film stamped Cannes. Is a fixed camera observing a landscape wide, a lake, the rocky mountains, bathed in darkness, classical music… BORING.
But very quickly (14 minutes, past a long scene in a court of law) the core of the movie is revealed : a plot is simple but have many ramifications, of the many characters and integers, a scenario is a concrete, an amazing development in the story, a rhythm, a blend of genres, a photography sumptuous.
LEVIATHAN is in fact a small masterpiece that reveals itself gradually, before falling back into a common destabilizing even if it is logical and very well staged.
This basic, Andrey Zvyagintsev, stretched and kneaded, It produces a true film-stimulation in modulating intelligently to the rhythm of his film, accelerating unexpectedly such a track story, by stretching another… so much So that one is happily lost between several stories that intertwine but yet have so much importance to our eyes. With a mastery for sure, it makes them converge up to a scene climax unexpected that redefines the whole.
One of the ideas for staging the most remarkable of LEVIATHAN is never to show an event, but arriving consistently after that happened. A master’s degree of the out-of-field quite impressive that pushes them to question the veracity and the future consequences, of what one has not seen, so hard to understand.
“A small masterpiece, but that does not keep all its promises.”
The staging of Andrey Zvyagintsev is also allows you to install the decor in very mineral a plot of thriller politico-religious where the beautiful landscapes are used as hiding-secrets.
Then, without warning, LEVIATHAN also became a comedy auscultant the rituals of Russian family life, marriage, dialogues between friends, more or less close.
A vision that seems comprehensive of russia, which is not without recalling the films of Bong Joon Ho, in his way to abolish the boundary between cinema and reality, humor second degree (This also recalls Bong Joon-Ho when it comes to mixing with mastery of several genres).
The plots come together in a climax intense. And then two-thirds of the film, comes the time to bring in a narrative multi-tracks to a single, to invoke religious symbolism is not quite a good idea, conclude with a polar mystique finally pretty classic, a narrative, yet wonderful in its eclecticism.
This leaves a back taste of unfinished business in a movie yet full of promise.
• Production : Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Screenplay : Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Main actors : Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Aleksei Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, Roman Madianov
• Country of origin : Russia
• Released : September 24, 2014
• Duration : 2h21mn
• Distributor : Pyramide Distribution
• Synopsis : A humble mechanic is threatened to get kicked out of his home by a mayor wormy ; he asks for help to his lawyer friend.