Loveless

Russia probably got over Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan so he was able to continue with film-making. Nevertheless, he chose quite a difficult premise again – parents ignoring their son which leads to a tragedy. The self-centeredness, indifference, depression and sadness of everyone fascinated me. The film-making aspect was at top level. That was evident in shots of Russian panel high-rises that looked a bit better than just usual panel high-rises – they are probably the main building blocks of every Russian movie’s scenography. I wasn’t able to understand the human arrogance that sometimes appears in every one of us, and therefore I rated it with 4 stars. I was disgusted. Moreover, Loveless is quite a slow-paced movie so you should prepare yourself for it. But the good experience is guaranteed. (10/23/2020)

A screenwriting and directing masterclass. The film is precisely built, not only in terms of the story, but also the mood. A chilling image of a society of self-love; a society without empathy. An inspiring fusion of the raw practices of the Romanian New Wave and Tarkovsky's metaphysics of abandoned places and stopped time. Were it not for a few small, false tones and the slightly uneasy, repetitive middle of the film, it would have been another masterpiece after Leviathan. This is "just" a great drama. (05/29/2017)

The cool thing is that if someone had made this twenty years ago as a soon-to-be sci-fi social satire, there would have been voices raised about how it pushes the envelope to the point of comical. Zvyagintsev formally arouses the hope that behind the blank expressions and hateful rants there's a personality that merely doesn't want to show itself, which is why we can barely see the phone screens everyone has their faces attached to and why most of the more intimate scenes are shot in large, shadowy long shots. As the film unfolds, however, this hope slowly fades. By the final reveal, the impenetrable shell of the characters is now definitively closed, not out of guilt but out of a rationalizing panic at taking on the responsibilities that stand in the way of their pursuit of the happiness they believe they are simply entitled to. Understandably, however, they will never find fulfillment even, if they get their way. Unlike many of his European filmmaking contemporaries, Zvyagintsev is a superb director who doesn't waste words and tells a story with images. He keeps the line of enquiry going through genre formal devices, often awakening false hopes. When the search team learns of a secret bunker of children in an abandoned building, we follow the long minutes of the search in a run-down recreation center, and by doing so the film suggests that this storyline is going somewhere. Similarly, when a character walks casually to a window and looks out into the landscape for a long time, with each passing second this shot raises the hope that the son they’re searching for will suddenly appear before her. I like the directorial ideas, like when a totally unknown character gives a total stranger a phone number during the exposition in the fancy restaurant, or the autopsy room door not opening; I like how the film doesn't let up. I'm not going for the maximum just because the film basically says the same thing with the first shot as it does with the last, but I might change my mind. (04/18/2018)

Even though at times something like hope shines through the film, you still get the feeling that something rather dark and depressing is constantly hovering over the characters. And over the viewer, too. It's as if everything the characters do is somehow wrong, and there's no way to get out of the loop under any circumstances. However, you still want to watch to the end. (03/27/2018)

Acclaimed director Andrei Zvyagintsev has made a raw and uncompromising statement about the superficial times we live in. If lovers didn't bond their relationships with children, but had them only after careful consideration and truly out of love, the horrendous situations described in this movie wouldn't happen so often. This is not just an insight into Russian society, but similar relationship blunders occur everywhere in the world, and our country is no exception. In addition to the very confident direction and immersive cinematography, this picture also impresses with extremely convincing performances from the excellently cast leading roles and extremely intense music. (85%) (01/14/2023)