Nelyubov (Loveless)
When the reviews from Cannes Film Festival started flowing this year, many critics put their money on the new film by Russian author Andrei Zyvaginstev to win the Palme d'Or. The jury decided to only award it the Jury Prize (something like the 3rd Place), but the consensus was very positive towards the film, something that the actual winner, The Square, didn't really achieve, polarizing opinions towards it.
Loveless is a cold view at Russian society, where Zyvaginstev shows a steady growth as a master in the film language, matching powerful images with an existential tale about a splitting couple that hates each other and his child that flees when overhears that none of his parents want him after the divorce. But even if the film develops in the search of the boy, the clues that we find are less on his whereabouts and more on the causes that led to this event, causes that go far beyond on Zhenya and Boris being terrible parents (they are, no denying of it), but on how their entire little world has somehow pushed them to be in the position they are.
It's smart storytelling that makes the narrative actions go forward while it digs in the characters more and more, allowing us to really know who they are; the film never condescends or attempts to justify their actions, but we get a sense to understand why is it that they are that way. It is a film about the lost of innocence and how is it that the society forces us to grow up as entities unable to form connections and love anybody else, not even our own family. Zhenya and Boris became parents not because they really wanted to be, but as a way to escape their own families, and after their failed marriage, they have found new partners, also as a way to escape and not because of true affection. Little Alyosha's flee is, in a way, the only escape to become a monster like his parents did in a world that broke their innocence and showed them no affection at all.
In a very formal style, Zyvaginstev goes following his character to the frozen Russian landscapes, as if he was suggesting that the cold weather was also a factor that have helped to the emotional isolation that all of them live. The performances are terrific, and the director knows how to approach them in camera, lying with them slightly longer than needed to catch reactions and transitions, and at time he let them leave the scene before cutting, to let us feel the coldness of empty spaces, but also as if it was a moment of calm when this people are gone. He also introduces news reporting on political and social events in the background, as if letting us know that the country itself also has had an effect on the lack of love for this characters.
No doubt that Zyvaginstev is the most promising Russian filmmaker nowadays, he has offered better and better things with every film by knowing how to portray pessimistic histories about broken people in the beautiful way of art. Loveless can suffocate us, but it also leave us space for a deep introspection on our relationships at a micro and a macro levels, all of this with beautiful and profoundly sad images of the Russian taiga.
