1174. Leviafan

Leviafan
Leviathan
2014
Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

I actively seek depressing Russian novels in the winter time. I guess I choose to lean into the whole Seasonal Active Disorder thing. This fits the bill perfectly as the Russian Book of Job.

The crooked mayor of Pribrezhny attempts to expropriate the land on which Kolya's house is built. Kolya has a depressed wife and an equally miserable teenaged son. Kolya enlists his friend Dima, a lawyer from Moscow, to help him try to fight the expropriation. But Dima's arrival just adds more tragedy to Kolya's life.

So obviously, watching this man suffer wasn't fun, but he was such a tool that by the end, I didn't feel so sorry for him. I am not sure I really got much out of the experience of watching. Yes, life is often a depressing onslaught of tragedies. I am sure some meaning can be extracted from the misery, but I wasn't up to mining today.

Entirely skippable, unless you need a cure for excessive happiness.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

The actors chose to drink for real in the scenes with drinking.

The film was criticized by the Russian Ministry of Culture for its portrayal of Russians.