By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Starring: Aleksey Rozin | Andrey Smirnov | Elena Lyadova | Nadezhda Markina
Country: russia
Year: 2012
Running time: 109
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1925421/
Jason says: “There’s a certain type of story that appears in magazines devoted to mystery and suspense which doesn’t really present much of either, but instead strips all the plot away and focuses tightly on what the pressures on one character are. They’re usually rather short – the writers do that one thing and get out. Elena is sort of like those stories, but drawn out to feature length and not quite compensating for the lack of a narrator with its excellent craft.
“Elena (Nadezhda Markina) and Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov) live in a fancy apartment in Moscow, each on their second marriage, and each with a child from the first. For Elena, it’s Sergei (Aleksey Rozin), who lives on the outskirts of the city with his wife and sons; Vladimir’s daughter Katya (Elena Lyadova) spends her father’s money but doesn’t talk to him much. Elena would like Vladimir to pay her grandson Sasha’s college tuition; he doesn’t feel any sort of obligation.
“Though ELENA was originally conceived as a London-set, English-language feature made for an international audience, it’s very tempting and natural for an American viewer to read it as commentary on today’s Russia. And, to a certain extent, he probably should, even if that’s not completely the filmmakers’ intent; even if writer Oleg Negin and director Andrei Zvyagintsev mean to create something universal, they’re doing it with the haves and have-nots of a very specific place and time. The blunt cynicism frequently on display is a Russian tradition, although the particular class divisions on display a generation after the fall of communism have parallels in many other places.
“On the other hand, some of this likely just comes from Zvyagintsev and company presenting things at such a languorous pace and particular remove that the audience figures that there must be more going on than appears on the surface and starts looking for meaning, even if what it infers is not necessarily what the filmmakers meant to imply. That’s actually a fairly satisfying experience for the first half of the movie or so; there almost certainly is meaning in the distance Elena travels to visit her family, or how Sergei and Sasha take Elena’s generosity for granted in exactly the same way. The timing and manner of Vladimir requesting another cup of coffee from Elena says a ton about their relationship. Every scene is so precisely constructed and pointed with so little to distract the audience from what every motion is saying that it must be deliberate – right?
“After a while, though, it starts to become tiresome – there aren’t a whole lot of plot-advancing events, but once they start happening, it would be nice if there were a few more of them, in somewhat quicker succession. With what feel like fewer new insights to be gleaned, what was fascinating before soon seems belabored. Cinematographer Mikhail Krichman’s camera work remains impressive, but Zvyagintsev seems to draw scenes out, seemingly convinced we need to see every detail in real-time.
“It’s all shot beautifully, and acted nearly as well. Nadezhda Markina is astonishingly good here, blending in with the environment seamlessly and letting her conflicting sides contrast perfectly: She’s clearly more at home with her family than with her husband, but that doesn’t leave her oblivious to how she’s treated; there’s affection and tension in equal measures when playing against Andrey Smirnov’s Vladimir. And while Smirnov does certainly play Vladimir as a bit of a bastard, he’s a human and occasionally multifaceted one. His scenes with Elena Lyadova are intriguing, as she also makes an initially chilly character
worth the audience’s attention.
“Unfortunately, by the time that happens, there’s just not much time left in a movie that already feels longer than it is. It winds up being rather unfortunate that ELENA never becomes a genre picture; a situation as well-observed as this one also deserves to be acted upon rather than just left to sit. 3.5 cats
“Seen 3 June 2012 in Landmark Kendall Square #4 (first-run, 35mm; ends Thursday)”
Peter H. says: “What impressed me about ELENA was how both wealth or lack of it can breed bad parenting. Elena, as well meaning to her son Sergei and his family as she may have thought in her own mind, was totally detached from realizing his lack of ambition in preference to hand-outs. She seemed to be oblivious to the same aimlessness and lack of appreciation in her grandson, Sasha. ‘Gi-me, Gi-me, Gi-me’ was their apparent mindset, and she fell right into line for them. We do not know why Sergei was not working instead of eating snack foods, playing video games, and getting his wife pregnant a third time. Why was Sasha so aimless, instead preferring his hoodlum gang which the parents fully knew about? I wanted to know why. However, Elena felt Sasha’s going into University instead of the Army, which certainly would have been a more positive move for him, was worth sacrificing her husband, Vladimir.
“Vladimir, for all his wealth, was oblivious to the damage he had caused his unappreciative daughter, Katya, by giving her everything she needed without any expectation that she earn any of it. Katya herself even understood that. We also do not know how Vladimir attained this wealth. Not knowing how financial status is decided or achieved in Russia, I wondered. Did he work hard through the final days of the Soviet Union to reach this status, or did he inherit it? We never find out.
“These examples of poor parenting are certainly not particular to Russia, but indicative of the universal material mindset of today’s parents who want to indulge their adult children because they can, or in governments who provide lofty handouts to their citizenry despite financial strife. As a very recent example, France just lowered its retirement age back to 60 from 62.
“I found the film’s strength in its focus on the disturbing ‘parental disconnect’ of its main characters from teaching or expecting any level of motivation and responsibility in their children. 3 cats”
Chris says: “Andrei Zvyagintsev’s THE RETURN is one of the best directorial debuts of the past decade. His second film (which never found US distribution) was nearly as good, and his third is nearly as good as the second. If this suggests a very gradual decline, it shouldn’t because the direction, visual palette and acting are consistently strong in all three. That leaves the story, which carries intriguing implications about class, family, loyalty and wealth, all in a post-Soviet Russian context. While these implications linger long after the credits roll, the story wraps up with little mystery or ambiguity, feeling a little pat, which makes this a slightly lesser (if no less technically accomplished) work from a still-promising director. 4 cats”