'Leviathan' a Monster of Cliché, Craft

Half of the hustle and bustle surrounding arthouse cinema can be generalized in one sentence: put some fancy terms like identity, modernity, and duality together with nudity, and you will get a stereotypical western-European art film; put some fancier terms like oppression, rebellion, and religion together with nudity, and you will get a stereotypical Asian or Eastern-European art film. In this sense, “Leviathan” falls nicely into the latter pattern. It decries a relentless government machine, portrays struggling helpless individuals, sneers at the corrupt Orthodox Church, and offers a moderate amount of nudity. Nevertheless, these clichés are balanced by director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s mastery of visual language and narrative power, which save the film from mediocrity.

Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov), owner of an auto-repair shop in a small Russian town, is about to lose his house due to a construction project that will benefit the corrupt mayor. Teaming up with his lawyer friend Dmitriy (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) and his wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova), he decides to fight the mayor through a lawsuit. The plot resembles that of many recent films, such as “This Is Not a Film”, “Timbuktu,” and especially “A Touch of Sin,” whose first 30 minutes have a story almost identical to that of “Leviathan.” To make it worse, this clichéd story is written in a direct, almost unvaried way. To demonstrate the confrontation between the individual and the system, the screenwriter simply shows Kolya telling Dmitry and Lilya that they will beat the mayor, and shows the mayor bragging, “You are all insects.” Later in the film, probably in an effort to make the conflict more complex, the screenwriter adds another worn-out storyline: Dmitriy starts to have a secret affair with Lilya. This stands in contrast to the originality of other recent films on similar themes.  “This Is Not a Film,” has the unique perspective of a film director telling how he is banned by his home country; “Snowpiercer” puts different social classes into train carriages; and “A Touch of Sin” uses multiple narratives to enrich its volume. Immediately, the predictable and uninventive script of “Leviathan” prevents it from becoming a great film.

Fortunately, “Leviathan” partly balances these shortcomings in its story with director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s command of cinematic language. Frequently in the film, the visual image serves a strong narrative purpose or externalizes the characters’ state of mind. For example, in the climactic scene, the protagonist’s house is suddenly torn down by huge claws of excavators, right after he has been taken away for a homicide that he did not commit. From inside the house, the director presents the audience with two minutes of delicate still shots detailing how the excavator abruptly breaks through the wall out of complete silence, how the claw contemptuously shuffles away the dining table that the main character has used for years, and how the whole two-storey building disappears in two minutes. Then silence returns. Here the government machine is vividly visualized as the dreadful mechanical claws, and the individual is ground to rubble. In another shot, a car rushes in fog towards the scene of an accident. The car stops, and the characters get out. The camera stays in the car, and shows the windshield wipers clearing up the window bit by bit, until the character finds out the horrible truth. Such elegant and sometimes minimalistic scenes speak louder than words.

Zvyagintsev’s mastery is also evident in the film’s small details. In one scene when the protagonist is waiting for a government clerk to respond, another clerk is shown playing solitaire on his computer. In another scene the main character runs into the local priest in the supermarket, and the latter, looking just like any ordinary, middle-aged man, responds awkwardly to questions. Such details give the lackluster story a layer of authenticity, and give a glimpse into an immense corrupt system that extends far beyond what confronts the main character.

“Leviathan” has an interesting duality: as much as its story is unimaginative and bland, its visual language is rich and well-crafted. In the end, it stands out of the crowd but still has a ways to go to be considered a true masterpiece.