Russia 2014. Director Andrey Zvyagintsev.
Nominated for the Academy Award for the best foreign language film, this film has been lauded as a brilliant indictment of Putin’s Russia as it affects ordinary middle class people.
The director has presented the story of Job in the modern context as the central character loses everything in the course of being ground down by corrupt authorities, supported by venal and dishonest clergy, all justified by the overarching State (the “Leviathan” from the Thomas Hobbes philosophical treatise).
This story does not engender much optimism but we immerse ourselves in the significance of the helpless situation faced by the “hero”.
A masterwork.
114 minutes.
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