May 28, 2017
'Loveless': Andrey Zvyagintsev Reveals How the Anguish of Russia is in All of Us
Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s ‘Loveless’ is a bleak window into a vapid society devoid of empathy and meaning.
In 2014, Andrey Zvyagintsev made the definitive contemporary Russian film. At once, the ambitious and harrowing Leviathan is a Biblical tragedy, a classic Russian novel (in the vein of Dostoevsky), and a searing indictment of Russia’s current political situation. In the film, a poor man from a remote fishing village engages in an uphill battle against eminent domain; in the end, he loses much more than his property to the state.
Needless to say, the Russian parliament, which had contributed state funds to the production of Leviathan, publicly denounced the film. That’s why, at the film’s press conference and in a private interview with No Film School, Zvyagintsev and producer Alexander Rodnyansky revealed that they ventured outside the system to fund their next film, Loveless, which just premiered at Cannes.
Source: NoFilmSchool