#zvyagintsev

[moonlightsdream]

FILMS in 2024: 56 | The Return Возвращение (2003) — dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev   

[addictivecontradiction]

Возвращение, 2003

[batterknowsbetter]

I would like to draw your attention to the kind of information surge that Ukrainians have to live in:

1. a photo of a two-year-old child killed by a russian missile.

2. Jim Cummings praising zvyagintsev's films.

My sister tells me that people from the West always divide cinema and war. But I want the only thing that westerners will divided is russia.

I want to talk about zvyagintsev in a little more detail. In 2022, he gave an interview to anton dolin (this is the clown that Ridley Scott said fuck you). This interview perfectly illustrates how the so-called intellectual elite of russia is completely detached from the russian people, illustrates the terrible naivety, criminal blindness and stupidity of these people. For example, zvyagintsev says that the russians who remained in russia are hostages (oh, poor people, we from Ukraine can help with something). The mantra about the hostages is so deeply rooted in the consciousness of the so-called liberal russians. It protects them from the realization that their fellow citizens have turned into animals begging for blood. Then he says that you need to let this war into yourself (remembers Bucha and starts to cry. Ten points for acting) to accept the conflict and the words that a person tells you, because one day she will understand that she was wrong. He says that "it is not necessary to multiply the war, conflicting with people who support the war, it is necessary to listen to them." The great peacemakers, the russians, who do not want to multiply the war around them, have been turning a blind eye to theave been turning a blind eye to the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Ukrainian territory, to the torture chambers and the sentences imposed on Crimean Tatars for eight years.

Then he asks: "Why didn't we react when we bombed Syria? Well, because it is far. And Ukraine is close and Ukrainians are close to us." That is, when Russia was razing Aleppo to the ground, it was okay, because you didn't have to pay for it, but when Ukraine was attacked and sanctions were imposed, it became inconvenient to keep silent. Remember, Syrian, the russian director does not care that his country bombed your cities, because you are not a neighboring country.

"I cannot agree with people who say that we should forget and ignore russian culture, people sitting in bomb shelters cannot think otherwise, but it will all pass." It will all pass. This cynical phrase just cracked me up.

"I don't understand to whom culture is to blame, to whom Rachmaninoff and our cinema are to blame." In front of all countries where you are your culture is used as a marker of conquest. How are the Pushkin monuments in Syria? How is the Mariupol theater is closed with a banner with Russian writers and Ukrainian artists that you want to own? Your culture is a cancer, it comes first and only death follows.

"We have nothing else to do but make movies." What about raising money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, supporting the Ukrainian army, so that the war ends soon and Ukraine wins? No? Well, okay.

A russian director who shoots his new movie in Europe has the opportunity to do so, all he has to do is say I am against the war and all doors are open for you. Whereas some Ukrainian artists do not physically have this opportunity. At the moment, there are no Ukrainian films at Cannes, but there is a russian film. Who is to blame for a culture that shouts into a loudspeaker, trying to drown out the victim?

[hotnunswithguns]

Stills from 'Leviathan'(2014) dir Andrey Zvyagintsev. Source:

[lascitasdelashoras]

Andrey Zvyagintsev - The Banishment

[byneddiedingo]

Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)

Cast: Aleksey Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Roman Madyanov, Anna Ukolova, Aleksey Rozin, Sergey Pokodaev. Screenplay: Oleg Negin, Andrey Zvyagintsev. Cinematography: Mikhail Krichman. Production design: Andrey Ponkratov. Film editing: Anna Maas. Music: Andrey Dergachev, Philip Glass.

Leviathan was the official Russian entry in the Oscar foreign film category and there was controversy in Russia over its portrayal of the hard-drinking Russians, the corrupt bureaucracy, and the complicit Russian Orthodox Church. It's a truly astonishing film when you consider all of these things, and that the villain of the film, the grasping, criminal major (played to the creepy depths by Roman Madyanov) presides over his malfeasance under a watchful portrait of Vladimir Putin. At one point in the movie, the protagonist, Kolya (Alexey Serebryakov), and his friends engage in some drunken target practice that involves shooting at pictures of Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and other former communist leaders. One of the group says he has pictures of some more recent targets once those are gone. Cynicism and bitterness prevail throughout the film, and with its dark humor and deep-rooted hopelessness it reminds me of hard-core American film noir. Through it all, though, there's the soiled beauty of the Russian landscape, splendidly filmed by Mikhail Krichman. There are some chilling moments, such as the monotone readings of the court's judgment against Kolya in his suit against the mayor and the even more devastating judgment against Kolya at the film's end. And it's heart-wrenching to watch the destruction of Kolya's home from inside, with furnishings that we have come to know from earlier scenes in the movie still in place, being swept away by the jaw of wrecking machine. 

[davidhudson]

Happy 60th, Andrey Zvyagintsev.

[harrison-abbott]

[vidioten]

Vozvrashchenie (2003), Andrey Zvyagintsev.

[ozdeg]

[squeeegs]

the murder trio

[addictivecontradiction]

Возвращение, 2003

[infatuaciones]

[manitat]

2017: Loveless

[viecome]

Vídeo. Andrey Zvyagintsev

Andrey Zvyagintsev pic.twitter.com/f04uhSUTiT— FilmoteCanet Cinema (@CanetCinema) November 8, 2023 https://x.com/CanetCinema/status/1722201334664114593?s=20

[davidhudson]

Happy 59th, Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Poster by Dan Petris.