The word Leviathan means many important things at the same time.
It is a book from 1651, inspired by a biblical character, by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, which warns of the danger of social autophagy in countries without an efficient government and with clear rules of coexistence. And it is also the name of a great Russian film from 2014, which portrays the disintegration of a society with very elastic values, ruled by Vladimir Putin.
Like all good works of fiction, the feature film directed by Andrei Zviaguintsev leaves room for many interpretations. It turns out that a controversy at the time of the premiere between the Russian Defense Minister and producer Alexander Rodnianski – who, by the way, is Ukrainian – made it clear that the idea was to speak ill of the country abroad.
The film, says the producer, “deals with the most important social issues of contemporary Russia and never becomes an artist’s sermon or a public statement; it is a story of love and tragedy lived by ordinary people.” In other words, a reading of these social issues is more than recommended.
The action takes place in a fictional town on the Barents Sea, that unattractive little piece of world that is divided by Russia and Norway in the Arctic Ocean. It’s a region where the trees don’t grow — the cold doesn’t let it — and not even with a lot of good will one would see a natural scenery of beauty.
For that is where Nikolai Kolia Sergeyev, a blond, obese, 40-year-old auto mechanic, his wife Lilia and their naughty teenage son, Roma, live.
The lighter and more superficial layer of the plot pits Kolia against a bad man, the mayor of the town whose name is Vadim and who wants to expropriate the mechanic’s house and workshop for a purposely low price. Kolia enlists the help of a friend from his youth, the handsome lawyer Dima, with an office in Moscow.
But things are starting to get complicated on all sides. The judiciary is rotten. He unreasonably rejects the remedies by which Kolia seeks to obtain fairer compensation. A dialogue between the lawyer and the judge simply portrays the ethical degradation to which this Russia, at the same time true and fictional, reached when descending the slope of post-communism. In the courtroom, right behind the judge, there is the official photograph of Putin.
The complication continues when the lawyer becomes the lover of Lilia, the mechanic’s wife. The impression that the set of characters is not well inside their own skin is shown by the fact that almost all of them consume literally huge amounts of vodka. It’s a way to escape reality.
One question that can be asked concerns the political dimension of adultery. At no time did Lilia show affection for her husband’s friend from youth. But she wasn’t fond of Kolia either; between the two there is a lack of complicity and a lot of coldness. The politicization of adultery occurs when the image of this half-lost husband is emptied of moral and erotic consistency. He’s a poor guy.
It is the realization of this fact that leads the wife to undress in front of Dima, a successful man, in the room of the modest hotel where he is staying. Politics and sex therefore have many possible connections. The mechanic’s wife becomes an adulteress when she realizes how much her husband was still a dull drunk.
Kolia discovers his wife’s infidelity during a picnic. She gives her a good beating and breaks up with her friend. But we’re just at the beginning of a scenario that’s going to get a lot worse. Lilia disappears for three days, and friends believe she has run off with her lover to Moscow. On the fourth day her body appears on a deserted beach.
The mechanic is intoxicated and is arrested on suspicion of a crime he probably did not commit. He is sentenced to 15 years in prison, in a trial that cannot be appealed. Roma, his son, is adopted by a couple of friends, to whom the boy asks if the adoption is “for money”. No, Andrei Zviaguintsev, it happens out of generosity that he cannot see.
The film ends with cranes demolishing the house and workshop. It’s already autumn. With the arrival of winter, the rubble merges with the abundant snow of the Barents Sea.
On the mundane and less relevant side, “Leviathan” was nominated for an Oscar for best international film and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for best screenplay.
