The Spectator - February 08, 2018

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child, 12-year-old Alyosha (Matvey Novik-
ov), peels off and walks through a winter
forest where the trees are all icy branches
and the river is glacially still — everything
in this film is profoundly cold — and the
camera lingers to study the base of one par-
ticular trunk and its roots. (I can spot the
symbolism; I just can’t be expected to tell
you what it means.)
Alyosha makes it home, if you can call
it a home. He is the son of Boris (Aleksey
Rozin) and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) who
are in the midst of a bitter divorce. They row
viciously about who will keep the boy, as nei-
ther likes him — she will later confess she
wishes she’d had an abortion — and neither
wants him. Can they palm him off on her
mother? he asks. Can they, she argues, send
him to boarding school until the army takes
him? We then see Alyosha hiding behind
the bathroom door. He has overheard, and
is convulsed with sobs. Such heartless bas-
tards, but you do want to stick with Zhen-
ya and Boris. Or, if not that exactly, you do
want to find out what Zvyagintsev plans to
do with them. (Mow then down, Andrey!
Mow them down!)
During the first hour we look at the par-
ents’ lives. They are already involved with
other people. Boris has a young girlfriend
who is pregnant. Zhenya is dating a rich
older man who has a fancy apartment and

takes her to fancy restaurants and drinks

from a balloon wine glass, which is always

fancy. We understand that Boris is weak.

He is a salesman, his boss is conservative,

and he’s terrified he’ll get the sack if his

divorce is revealed. Zhenya, meanwhile,

is a full-on self-absorbed narcissist, pre-

occupied with Instagram and selfies, eyes

always on her phone. Zvyagintsev is a sin-

gular filmmaker (The Return, Elena, Levia-

than) but, still, he may have fallen for the

old trope of judging mothers more harshly

than fathers here. Slightly disappointing,

this.

So Boris and Zhenya are off living their

lives elsewhere, and although you’ll be

thinking of the boy — who is looking after

him? — they are not. It’s then discovered

he’s gone missing, and has been missing

for two days, so the second hour focuses

on the search for him. The police are jaded,

and say that they don’t have the resourc-

es to look, so a volunteer search-and-res-

cue organisation is contacted. They search

crumbling, abandoned buildings and dis-

used, decaying swimming pools — I can

spot the metaphysical imagery; I just can’t

be expected to tell you what it means —

plus there’s a trip to visit Zhenya’s mother,

who turns out to be delightful. No, she isn’t.

Boris calls her ‘Stalin in a skirt’ and she

heaps abuse on everybody. Like I said, the

women are judged especially harshly here.

In having to find the boy, you expect

that the couple will draw together, or will

be put in touch with their humanity — but

they are never let off the hook. And nei-

ther are we. The film does indict modern

Russian society with references to, say,

the conflict happening in Ukraine follow-

ing the annexation of Crimea — Zhenya,

blank-faced on a treadmill, wears a sweat-

shirt emblazoned with ‘Russia’ while the

conflict is misreported on a TV in the back-

ground. But it could be about the spiritual

vacancy at the heart of any modern socie-

ty, with its self-loving use of technology, its

governments that care little for its citizens

and expect volunteers to clear up the mess,

and all the lovelessness that can sometimes

be handed down through the generations,

deepening like a coastal shelf (as Philip

Larkin would say).

It is a bleak film, but Zvyagintsev’s art-

istry means that it is not just compelling,

but more involving than you’d ever think

possible, given the two main characters are

so unceasingly terrible. Also, it is devastat-

ing, but I think I already mentioned that.

This may well be about the state of us

all, which is the most devastating of

all the devastatings