Elena

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.

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.

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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This is the sort of movie that will do well at film festivals and with certain critics but for me it's all a bit too familiar, though there is simply no denying that this still remains a very well made movie.

Kind of funny but while watching this movie it kept reminding me of a different Russian movie that I had seen; "Vozvrashchenie". I only found out later that the movie indeed had been directed by the same director; Andrei Zvyagintsev. So he obviously is a person with a very strong and distinctive style but yet I wasn't as intrigued with this movie as I was was with "Vozvrashchenie".

It's a movie that shows how one event can change everything in a family. That is good all but it's not exactly something that has never been done in any movie before. I did wish that the movie would had done some more interesting stuff at times with its story and characters but it instead makes the choice to be a simplistic and straightforward as possible, which adds to the realism perhaps but not to the originality and it doesn't make this the most interesting or effective genre example either.

The movie definitely takes the time to setup things but it feels a bit pointless at times. Really, the movie too often is showing you absolutely nothing and some sequences are needlessly long. The movie wants you to fill in things for yourself mostly and doesn't just lay out everything. It's the reason why the movie also often has no dialog at all in it. The first part and the final part of the movie is like this. It seemed like things were developing- and starting to get interesting in the middle but it doesn't ever push through.

Still I can't be very negative toward this movie. It's obviously a superior made movie, that is beautiful looking as well, with its cinematography, that helps to set up a nice mood for the movie. Also nothing wrong with its storytelling. I mean, it does what it does well, even though it just isn't my cup of tea and it really isn't the best, most original, or intriguing example of the genre that I have ever seen. It's great to watch still, if you are into these type of movies.

A really good movie, you can still real easily do without though and is hardly the best that the genre currently has to offer.

7/10

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After Zvyagintsev's first movie, "The Return", I desperately wanted to see more of his work. He made another movie that I couldn't find, and finally- "Elena". New Russia, few new rich, and not so new, many poor. The land of fake equality became a land of stunning disparity. And the same kind of ruthless, lacking conscience kind of person that thrived in communism, does ever so well in the pool of greed and self-absorption. It was always about money and power, anyway. Cruel world and cruel deeds. What would one do for those he or she loves, no matter how undeserving they are. Apparently everything, even kill. Human capacity for evil surpasses very few things, and the ability to justify evil tops everything else. Hence the world we live in. Very simple actually, but still beyond comprehension of billions.