LEVIATHAN - Tuesday 31st March 2015.

I saw the award winning highly acclaimed Russian foreign language film 'LEVIATHAN' earlier in the week and enjoyed this grim, bleak, harrowing tale from Co-Writer/Director Andrey Zvyagintsev set on the edge of the Barents Sea in the small remote fishing community of Pibrezhny. Set in the present day we are given here a story of greed, corruption, desperation, hopelessness and loss as it arrives front & centre in this small little township and turns the lives of one family inside out and upside down with far reaching consequences for those involved.


As the film opens the camera pans through various land and seascapes showing the viewer the beautiful yet foreboding and unforgiving terrain of the Barents Sea as snow and ice covers huge slabs of granite and lava flows down to the waters edge. It sets the scene for the harsh story that follows, as the inhabitants of this small coastal town go about their meagre lives eeking out what they can despite what Mother Nature must throw at them. We are introduced to Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov) who owns a large house on the towns outskirts in which he has lived for many years and which he built, and he carves out a living as a mechanic - a skill at which he is clearly adept. His wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova) and his a fourteen year old son Roma (Sergey Pokhodaev) with his former now deceased wife, live there together but the relationships are strained. Lily is unhappy but keeps it largely hidden and Roma is your typical early teenager rebelling against everything and slinks off with his mates to meet in an abandoned ruined church to drink beer and smoke cigarettes.

Kolya wakes early one morning and makes for the local train station to meet a friend travelling from Moscow. We learn that the two are long term friends with history together going back to their time in the Russian Army - but Dmitri (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) is now a successful lawyer, and he has arrived to help old friend Kolya out of a spot of bother! It seems that the local Mayor, Vadim (Roman Madyanov), is trying to pull a fast one on Kolya and repossess his desirable town fringe sea frontage residence at a knock down price by the foulest low down dirty conniving means possible, then demolish it and build a grand palace of some description that is likely to be totally OTT. Vadim is an often drunken slob of a man, a mean bastard really - seriously overweight, vodka swilling and with a back story of vice, corruption, dirty deeds and doubtless blood on his hands!

What Vadim hasn't counted on though it seems is Kolya's big shot Moscow law man Dmitri who has being doing some digging on Vadim and has dished up a portfolio of dirt that could be enough to send him down, for good, with the key thrown yonder!. But this town is slap bang in the middle of no where and there are no rules except those which Vadim chooses to uphold or make up for himself as he sees fit.

With the court ruling against Kolya and Dmitri at every turn despite the obvious injustice and illegality of the whole sorry situation, it seems that all hope is slowly, surely and painstakingly ebbing away. Vadim for a short while is on the run shaken up by what Dmitri has uncovered about his unsavoury past and so we see a lot of huffing & puffing, table banging, chest beating and spit balling at his equally questionable colleagues in attempt to convey the magnitude of the pile of shit in fact they are all in . . . potentially!  Fairly soon though the war of nerves and words picks up and Vadim muscles in and further threatens both Koyla (emotionally) and Dmitri (physically) seemingly now unperturbed about what Dmitri may or my not have on him. As this is going on Roma continues to rebel against his Dad and Stepmum, the pressure from Vadim boils over and lands Kolya in a jail cell, Dmitri and Lilya get it on, and a social shooting trip and vodka laced picnic out to the mountains doesn't end well for anyone!

With further court action and applications for injunctions and delays failing miserably, Kolya takes solace in bottle after bottle of vodka and packet after packet of cigarettes. He is powerless at every turn almost to beat the Russian system that is corrupt at every level and Vadim is determined to beat him into submission at almost any cost. With Vadim increasingly determined to grind the little guy down personal tragedy falls on the family that sends Kolya reeling and for which he pays dearly in the most unexpected way.

When the bulldozers move in on Kolya's home you know that he has lost everything and all hope is now vanquished. A poignant moment at the end as everything in the home is destroyed - memories, artefact's, possessions and the daily flotsam & jetsam of life as in time a church is built in its place so that Vadim can win further favour with the local Priest, and secure his place in the Kingdom of Heaven ultimately, despite his sins of the past (and present!).

The subject matter here is as bleak, daunting, harsh, raw and cold as the surroundings in which the film is set. It is a roller coater ride of emotions, dark humour, survival of the fittest, and how fragile lives can be turned asunder in a heartbeat. An engaging story, strong  performances, deftly Directed, beautifully filmed this is the must see foreign language film of the year, and if you only see one this year, ensure it is this one!

  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-