Elena

We're soon approaching the end of 2012. What a fabulous year for films, ey? Whilst I'm holding off completing my 'Top Movies of 2012′ until Christmas time, I'm rapidly trying to cram in all of those movies I've been desperate to see this year but, for some silly reason or another, have failed to get around to. Elena is such a film. The third feature from Russian modern master Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return, The Banishment), it's a frosty, portentous, and oddly beautiful depiction of conflict between contemporary Moscow's bourgeoisie and the humble underclass.

Nadezhda Markina plays the title character Elena, a sixty-something, former state nurse turned docile housewife to the wealthy Russian aristocrat Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov). They met late in life when Elena was once caring for Vladimir in a hospital bed, and started up an unlikely kinship. Whether it was a bond formed out of compromise or compassion is unsure, but now, ten years on, their stale, loveless marriage is nothing more than a formality.

Elena spends her days travelling by tram, train and bus to to visit her unemployed son from a previous marriage, Sergei (Andrei Smirnov). Living in the Projects and overlooking a disused power plant from the old communist days, he depends on his mother to support his family, and gets supplements from her pension money, and sly payments from Vladimir's estate.

Vladimir's relationship with his daughter Katya is initially far more hostile, but just as parasitic. Begrudgingly labelling her as a hedonist, the concerned father has cut off any contact with Katya, happy to transfer monthly payments into her bank account, but not willing to start up a paternal bond. After a heart attack puts Vladimir in hospital, Elena hatches a despicable plan to give her grandson enough money to put him through university; a prevention from the harsh life in the Russian underclass.

With deliberately slow pacing, long takes and a muted, quasi-apocalyptic colour palette, when it featured at Cannes this year, comparisons with prodigious Russian auteur were aplenty. But aside from these niggling aspects, Zvyagintsev is working within his own social-realism vein; taking the conventions of melodrama and reconfiguring them into an abstemious framework. He manages to present a quintessentially Russian cultural divide, but make it universally engaging and cinematic through some incredible performers across the board. Markina is astonishing in the lead. A taciturn character, she uses expression and lost glances to perfectly encapsulate the neglected wife-turned-carer, who is on the brink of depression and mania.

The finest moment of the entire movie doesn't even include our leading lady. Sitting in a private hospital bed, Vladimir's first and only encounter with daughter Katya is unnerving yet deeply poignant. Making up for lost time, they share awkward, short exchanges at first, before the emotions soon come flooding to the surface and the pair are sharing smiles and tears of joy, unbeknownst to them, for the last time.

The glacial cinematography from Mikhail Krichman, along with a pitch-perfect score from New York's Philip Glass, make Elena a film of remarkable, modest beauty. Give it a few years to mature, and we'll soon be heralding it as a modern masterpiece of some new European cinema movement. What movement? That's up for talented director Andrey Zvyagintsev to decide.

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Andrey Zvyagintsev 's 'The Return' is my favourite film to date of the 21st century. 'Elena', a personal drama that illuminates the class structure in contemporary Russia, is not quite so powerful – it's very slow, and the ambiguity of motive that drove the earlier film is not there. And on first viewing it wasn't clear to me whether the shocking but strangely ambivalent ending is a work of genius or the sign of a film that has lost its focus. Still, the director's ability to construct haunting, unexpected images has not deserted him; some scenes reminded me of Keislowski in his Polish phase, just about the highest praise I can give.

The director makes the statement that the devil you know might strike any time. The darkness is present all around. This is not Disney.

Perhaps not quite as ravishing or intense as the director's earlier or later works, this is nevertheless riveting enough. From a beautifully observed and measured opening with wondrous light patterns falling within the interior of a luxury apartment in Moscow we gradually learn of the daily movements of Elena and her less active but wealthy husband. We learn too of the husband's grown up daughter, living a 'hedonistic' life and Elena's extended family living within cramped social housing. For such a modest and leisurely paced film it is extraordinarily impressive how captivating it all is. Markedly different from the other films of Andrei Zvyagintsev, this is still a most impressive ad involving tale.

As one of the most talented directors in modern cinema, Andrei zvyagintsev was known for his critically acclaimed debut, "the return," which won as many as 20 awards at major film festivals. Many have viewed his second film, "the banishment" as a let-down given the unusually high standard set by his first film. So, many fans of Andrei Zvyaginitsev including myself eagerly waited for his third film, "elena" to come out to see whether this young talented director can overcome his "sophomore jinx." Compared to "the return" in which every second is engaging and serves a purpose, "elena" doesn't quite have the riveting power of the former. I can't pinpoint why, but a few minutes into the movie, my emotion remains unprovoked and numbed. The long, still shots of the interior of the bourgeois house in the city center did not quite convey the sense of alienation that the director intended. As one critic comment, it feels rather claustrophobic. It wasn't until 30 minutes into the movie, the first meaningful, engaging scene appears when the couple starts arguing at the breakfast table about the future of the woman's son. Of course, we have to give credit to the director for not making this film into a superficial family drama and for extending into the social and political context where the portrayal of the stark contrast between the woman's son's dingy, run-down apartment in the shady suburb and the rich man's luxurious condo begs some deep questions. But it seems to me that the director tried to take on too many important issues and lost his focus. The identity and the background of the man's pretty daughter are not adequately explained. Again, one problem of this film seems to mirror that of "the banishment." It suffers from being excessively mysterious and lack of explanation. As usual, the cinematography of this film is beautiful, as his previous films. One shot that is particularly striking is the long shot of the industrial complex under the sunset near the end of film. It is an absolutely beautiful and powerful image. And the subsequent scene where a blackout occurred and the hand-held camera follows a group of violent Russian youth gangs including the woman's own son, in darkness dimly lit by the distant bonfire, is incredibly authentic and powerful. This reminded me of the beginning of the banishment; this is where I think the director excels at, being able to immediately establish a mood with a few simple sequences. Overall, the film "elena" shows flashes of brilliance that resemble the director's debut, "the return," but ultimately it suffers from inadequately developed characters, lack of coherence of scenes and a failure to integrate the different themes it tries to convey.