has anyone seen zvyagintsev's Leviathan?

I heard it was kinda shite.

The 2012 Leviathan on the other hand is a masterpiece.

I thought it was unbearably boring but don't really remember much of it.

Thanks for the reminder. I was planning to watch that like 2 years ago but completely forgot about it.

I actually really enjoyed it, but I can definitely see where the pacing could be an issue

i ain't usually a griper of slower films so perhaps up my alley yes

and yeah the 2012 Leviathan is fucking fantastic and everyone should check that one out too

I didn't like its politics but other than that it's close to excellent. It's Aronofsky done right

It isn't very slow though. Well, at least I didn't sense in it that way

Seen it? I'm living it.

But in all seriousness, I've seen it and liked it very much. I don't know how you didn't hear anything about it since Cannes because it went on to win the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar as well (which boosted its profile quite highly). Here in Russia it's certainly been discussed rather thoroughly. A lot of people love Zvyagintsev here, but some also consider him a tad annoying in terms of how hard he wants to be the modern Tarkovsky. And some accuse him of sucking up to international festival cinema standards, for not making films in an entirely Russian way. Which basically means that some people don't appreciate that they're well shot, well directed and can absolutely be accepted on a bigger level by all sorts of audiences. And of course it caused a lot of controversy here in terms of its depiction of the country and the corruption and stuff like that. With some people saying that it's all bullshit, that nothing like this happens in Russia. YEAH, RIGHT. Usually those who say it are people from the biggest cities with the biggest income. Yeah, they CLEARLY know the plight of regular Russian folk from shitty towns.

Anyway, what I like about the movie (apart from how well it's made and acted) is that they take a pretty standard storyline (betraying lawyers, corrupt mayors, etc) which one can often find in crappy Russian TV series, and they 1) show how do it intelligently, 2) infuse it with SO much sorrow, pain and tragedy about the state of our country and the corrupt ties between the church and the governing bodies, that the overall experience just crawls into you and suffocates you a little bit on an emotional level. I do understand those who find it too ponderous or obvious in terms of its themes, but I dunno, the tragedy of those lives and the horror of being a 'nothing' person in current Russia is so well depicted that I couldn't help but admire the film a lot. There was another popular Russian film on similar themes which came out that year that was called "The Fool", but I thought that one was far sillier and far more basic in how it approached the subject of modern Russian corruption.