Best movie of this year hands down!

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's hard to admire a camerawork when it's not relevant to what's happening on a screen. Or to what is really on director's mind. At one point it becomes clear: he's searching for a recepie of international success while putting together the images. Which is OK since Hollywood has promoted this type of cinema. The issue I'm having with Zvyagintsev style is that he pretends to be something bigger than just another widely-recognized movie entrepreneur. I wish him good luck but I'm not in his fan club ))

Spoiler Alert!Leviathan is a 2014 drama directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in Foreign Language. The film tells the story of a confrontation between ordinary men Kolya and the corrupt mayor Vadim. Mayor wants to expropriate the land where Kolya's house is built, Kolya believes that the mayor will use this land for his own purpose and fight for the right to deny the expropriation. The setting of the film is the fictional town of Pribrezhniy, we understand that the city is small and that nothing extraordinary is happening there. The town also is not different from the other small town in Russia. It feels like the director is telling to the viewer that similar story could have happened in any Russian town. The film is an open critique of the corrupted governmental and local officials. This could be surprising because the film is made with the help of Russian ministry of culture. Yet, Leviathan brings up the themes that are not discussed explicitly in the Russian society. The film not only shows the issue of the corruption and the morality of the official's deeds, it also shows that the vulnerability of the officials and the inside hierarchy. For example, Dmitrii (the lawyer from Moscow) threaten Vadim with a compromising evidence. Therefore, we see that there is inside hierarchy and the official from Moscow stand above the ones in a smaller town of Russia and that they have the tools to replace them. Vadim's anxiety after Dmitrii threats supports this claim. The movie shows that all of the officials are interconnected in all of the affairs: when the mayor position is threatened, the other officials feel that they might lose their positions as well, so they start to act to support themselves and the corrupted mayor. It is interesting that film proposes that the ordinary people of Pribrezhniy are also complicit in the entire situation. They are complicit because of their ignorance and passivity. We see people who take of Roma at the end, they are not bad people and they decided to help the boy. Yet, they are not ready to act against the officials. Furthermore, they do not see beyond the facts that are presented to them, thus we can say that they ignore the issue and the actual truth. At the same time, Zvyagintsev shows that even intelligentsia is not ready to be active. Dmitrii as a part of the intelligentsia is fully aware of the situation, however, when the threats are starting to be about his private life he decided to flee and not to help. All of this creates the atmosphere of despair. Kolya is not able to protect this house and the citizen themselves are not able to oppose the government – Leviathan. As in the biblical text, the people are not able to fight with this creature and in a Hobbesian term, they give up all of their freedom and their rights. Therefore, the film shows this despair and how ordinary people are unable to fight the government. The film ends in the same manner as it started with the nature sequence. However, the end of the film is happening during the winter time. And we see same shots as in the beginning, but the river and everything is frozen there. This demonstrates the stagnation, and that after the Kolya's case this despair even strengthened. Yet, the very last shot of the film shows the strong sea that is not frozen and this might illustrate the hope that is present in Russian society.

It would be easy to say that Leviathan is a cruel depiction of the current state of affairs in Russia, that long time enemy we love to hate. But what we see here -abuse of power, cruelty, greed- is sadly universal and would be equally in place in Rwanda, Bolivia or Iowa.What strikes us as foreign is the steady descent into bleakness -poor Kolya seems doomed from the start and indeed the events throughout the movie keeps dragging him deeper and deeper- as opposed to the magic twist into a happy ending, or at least a glimmer of hope, Hollywood style.Leviathan does not offer a solution to end with authoritarian tyrants, and that makes it a better movie. If a solution even exists, we the viewers need to think it over and come up with our own answers. Superheroes are pretty hard to find.

I sometimes think people add an extra 5 points on this site when they see something with subtitles.I give this sleeping, depressing movie a 3, just for the one scene where I get to see how country bumpkin Russians have a fun camp out with 'drinkin n shootn'. They have more in common with the Americans than they would admit.To then have this 'idealic' scene be lost to a strange and bizarre incident that they don't fully explain until near the end of the movie, was just ridiculous and jarring. You are forced to do headcounts in every scene to see who got murdered. Why did the drunk with the AK let off a burst? Was he shooting at the adulterers? What the hell!Another point was the complete lack of explanation how the visiting brother could get away with having sex with his brother's wife constantly without getting caught, yet he's supposed to be there visiting and staying with them.The big fat drunkard mayor, who reminded me of Rob Ford, who suddenly turns into the maniacal dark mob demon, is also jarring and unbelievable.The drinking in this movie is so beyond belief. I understand Russians like their vodka, but are we expected to believe working class farmers and fish packers can afford to drink 2 bottles each a day? How are they not dead at 30? The next thing they do very weirdly in this movie is give you the rare opportunity to observe the entire opening readings, twice, of Russian court proceedings. in... a.... monotonous.... and rapid.... female Russian voice.There is no acting going on in this movie, as apparently the entire cast was encouraged to drink heavily, so we have drunken Russian bumpkins, a snob lawyer from Moscow, and a Rob Ford corrupt mayor look alike, all babbling drunken slosh at each other and spitting.The only acting done was by the teenage boy, as I guess they kept him out of the vodka, and even then his performance at times stretched into hysterical screeching.