REVIEW : "Leviathan" (2014) - Movie by Andrey Zvyagintsev
The title immediately reminds me of the 16th century philosopher Hobbes, who was very horny for a state that controlled everything and compared that idea to a fabled sea creature called a "Leviathan" (which also was the title his book). The reference is well placed for this movie which deals with the destructive nature of the state.
I have roamed around a bit for other reviews of this movie before writing here (which I rarely do btw) and one thing that hit me was how reviewers overwhelmingly see this as a critique of the local "system", which is Russia. Granted, the methods used by those who have violent power over others there, are likely more corrupt and violent than your average old western European or American power hungry political system. But it is an uppercut to any statist system anywhere in the world, as it is a description of the inherent problem in systems that is based on violence. And that is the same for all statist systems around the world, however explicit their violent control is.
Koyla is a hot-tempered middle aged mechanic, single father, who has ended up in an unwanted situation with the "authorities". The mayor wants the land upon which he has build his house and is using "expropriation" to get rid of him. But Koyla is not interested in leaving his home.
It is placed on a hill overlooking a gorgeous bay in the northern, barren parts of Russia. He loves his new girlfriend, but has trouble expressing himself in other than hot headed angry and corporeal ways. His son is in his puberty and understands that the "family" is under stress and it results in various conflicts.
An old friend, who is a hot shot lawyer in Moscow, has arrived to help him settle the case in the hope of using the state against itself. The lawyer is less confident of the how easy it will be to dismiss the mayor's intentions in legal ways and tries to make the expropriation money deal instead.
The conflict between Koyla, the lawyer and the corrupt mayor steadily increases and after Koyla´s girlfriend goes to bed with the lawyer, Koyla kind of looses it and starts burning the bridges. He is in a fight he cannot win and it does not help that he is constantly drinking vodka and basically is a sitting duck for the influential but deeply criminal and corrupt mayor.
I have great sympathy for the story/plot in this movie. I can really identify with the feeling of being completely overpowered by a system that basically can squash you like an annoying insect (paraphrasing the movie). The system is rotten to the core. It is baked in the cake. Those who rule you are the same people, basically, who is going to be judging whether or not you are treated ethically. It is a contradiction in self interests.
Those with power are always going to win one way or another. You might be luvcky to be one of those chosen to represent the illusion of the little "man" able to win over the system to give everyone the idea that there is anything like justice. But that is all a scam to create an illusion.
People live everywhere in this illusion, except for a brave few here and there. They actually believe that those who rule over them is going to protect them. And if they are not protected - they tell them selves they deserve the punishment. It is not without cause, that there is a good deal of references to christian aspects in the movie. Christianity is a slave morality, as Nietzsche would have said, and serves as a consolation for how your masters are treating you.
To paraphrase Nietzsche once more. Everything the state says is a lie and everything it has it has stolen. You can quote me for the addition "Everything it does is to destroy". It will crush anyone who comes in its path, to the extend that people let them do it. A very telling scene is where the bull-dozer tears down his house and we see it from the inside. The room where people have lived, laughed, cried and loved is being torn apart as if nothing really matters. The only thing the state can do is destroy. Everywhere, all the time.
The movie is very unsentimental and I like that. On the other hand it has a tendency to be dragging along and certain scenes don't feel necessary to tell the story, which is a combination of the good versus evil in Koyla versus the mayor. The scenery is very bare and beautiful but I see them more as intermissions in the movie than something that works with the story in any way.
The stories of the boy, the girlfriend the lawyer and a few others are not really fleshed out and in particular I never feel really under the skin of Koyla and experiencing things from his point of view. It is almost as if you are an external viewer looking at a person without anything else to go with than his outbursts and his smoking and drinking (of which there are a lot).
This one will get a decent recommendation for picking a topic that is not easy to deal with in a visual manner and for having an unsentimental tone and fairly direct metaphors for the points it is trying to put forth. But it is at times a slow burner where you really have to be in the mood for it, to make it sink in. It may be a bit of an unwarranted critique in some peoples eyes as the drawn out plot may help give the feeling of nothing happening in reality that can help you control that which is out of your control. You only have your hopes and beliefs in the system to hang on to. Still it feels a bit dull to me overall.
7/10