Russia’s renowned film-maker Andrey Zvyagintsev has only directed four films (made an exceptional debut with his 2003 film “The Return”) but has won more than forty international awards, and his films are justly compared with the early works of Tarkovsky and Sokurov. On the surface his stories are very simpler, but within that simplistic outline, he weaves a distinct critique on the contemporary Russian society as well as on the moral degradation of humanity at large. He imbues many enigmatic elements that compel a viewer to observe his works in an active manner. He makes us wrestle with our mind & heart to coax out the meaning of some supremely enigmatic shots. In his first two films, Zvyagintsev opted for non-specific settings, but his third-feature “Elena” (2011) is clearly set in the post-Soviet Russia, where the class discrepancy continues to haunt the Russian oligarchy.
Andrey has described “Elena” as ‘a moral catastrophe’ and
has turned into the territory of his favorite Dostoevsky. Pervasive melancholy
and knife-edged irony seems broods over the film, reminiscing us a 19th
century short story from the Russian literary masters. The movie starts in the
usual contemplative manner as a crow lands on the barren tree, situated outside
an expansive house. The final shot also shows the same barren branches. May be
the director through those branches is echoing the deformed state of the family
at the heart of this story. Middle-aged
Elena (Nadezhda Markina) awakes to the sound of an alarm clock. She combs her
hair, prepares tea or coffee and proceeds to a bedroom to wake an older man
named Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov). The separate bedrooms and Elena’s sturdiness
indicates that the woman might be the house-keeper.
But, it turns out that Elena is the old man’s wife, and
later we also learn that she was once Vladimir’s nurse. Elena has risen in
class only after marrying Vladimir, two years back. The couples lead a calm and
luxurious life but we could sense a palpable tension between them. Their mutual
affection and respect shatter whenever the subject of their respective children
comes to light. Elena financially supports her indolent, alcoholic son Sergei
(Aleksei Rozin), who lives with wife and two kids in a seedy neighborhood.
Sergei’s elder son Sasha is about to finish his school and with his don’t-care
attitude, he may either end up in army or prison. Vladimir supports his
estranged and spoiled daughter Katerina (Yelena Lyadova), although she doesn’t
visit him often.
Elena, blinded by her blood ties, often takes a trip through
train and bus to her son’s dilapidated neighborhood. She begs Vladimir to pay
for Sasha’s college fees as they all know that the boy’s grades won’t land him
in a college. Things go bad for Vladimir one day as he suffers from a
devastating heart-attack. In the hospital, he partially reconciles with his daughter, which leads Vladimir to decide on his final will. Later, when Vladimir
is recuperating at home asks Elena for a paper to draft his will as he called
for the lawyer the next day.
Although the movie’s titular character takes risks and bears consequences for the sake of love, the character doesn’t express any sincere
act of love. Sergei sits with his aloof son to play video games. Don’t mistake
that the guy is trying to bond with his son; he sits there to further
disconnect him from the familial responsibility as mommy has brought home more
money. We even don’t know whether Elena’s desperate efforts come from a sense
of duty she feels towards her son’s family or from the unquantifiable motherly
love. Elena, as played by Markina, seems to have relinquished all tangible
human emotions over the years. The internal vacuum she feels in the end makes
the film more realistic and renders a more disconsolate feeling.
Director Zvyagintsev is said to have used certain tropes of American
film-noir movies, but at the same time there are certain powerful moments that
makes us think back the classic Russian literature. Towards the end, Elena
rides a train with thousands of rubles and suddenly the train comes to a stop. She
clutches to her hand-bag nervously as uniformed men rush through the coach. The
guilt inside her involuntarily guides her expressions, but the event that made
the train stop is even weirder: a dream-like situation that tries to say
something ‘symbolic’. Zvyagintsev also hints at the ubiquitous nature of
violence in the Russian society through a discursive sequence, where Sasha &
his group fight with other boys in a wasteland. It indicates at a younger
generation who seems to have inherited the malice of the previous generations.
Andrey Zvyagintsev also stops us from forming easy opinions
on who is the story’s villain. At the end, we feel pity for all characters and don’t’
choose any sides. The director creates a world where coldness seems to have
pervaded on all corners. The poor neighborhood with brooding towers of nuclear
reactors and the gorgeous, spacious apartment of the rich has the same coldness
because the humans who inhabit these places are not spiritually different from
each other. In most of the indoor scenes, a mindless reality TV show seems to
be running on the background. May be the director is symbolically representing
that these inane shows modestly contributes (fixation on money may be the
largest contributor) to that kind of ‘emptiness’.
“Elena” (107 minutes) depicts the age-old conflict between
haves and have-nots with brutal honesty. It caustically remarks that surviving
in a withering society is itself a punishment for our past crimes.
Trailer
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