Andrey Zvyagintsev, master of nihilism, focuses all his dark energies on his latest work Loveless. An existential drama about a lost boy, and in no small part an examination on the disconnect and isolation symptomatic of modern Russian society.
The film centres on a broken family of three. Mother Zhenya (Maryana Spivak), father Boris (Aleksey Rozin) and their young son Alyosha (Matvey Novikov). Zhenya and Boris are in the middle of a messy divorce. Neither party could be described as a particularly good parent, Zhenya in particular outwardly shows disdain for Alyosha in front of others.
Early in the film things come to a huge head when Boris and Zhenya erupt into a massive argument over who will take care of their child, neither wanting the burden as they transition into new lives with respective new partners. The confrontation gets extremely ugly and as Zhenya exits the bathroom the camera holds for a moment on Alyosha sobbing silently. I don’t know what they did to that child to get him to emote like that but his face radiates a sadness that is haunting.
This is the catalyst for Alyosha’s disappearance. Before that fact is discovered the film spends time establishing the contstitution of the two narcissistic parents. Boris’ time is monopolised by work and his new girlfriend who he has knocked up. Around Zhenya he is uncommunicative, withdrawn and cold. Zhenya spends the entirety of her time within the broken family unit on social media. After their big fight she spends her time at a day spa to beautify herself for her new beau.
The film has much in common with Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist. Not unlike Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, the Loveless parents’ need for sexual gratification results in dire consequences for their child. The ‘slow’ cinema contemporaries both show glimpses of the greatness of Zvyagintsev’s compatriot, the late great Tarkovsky. There are echoes of his cinematic genius here and there. Like Tarkovsy who made nature a key figure to his films, Andrey’s Loveless winter is captured as harsh and beautiful. That same harsh beauty imposed over a run down, impersonal city creates moments of cinematic poetry.
There is one great weakness to the film and that is the unlikeable characters. The two parents are examples of self-consumed vapid nimrods. Even when truly in distress, desperate to find their child, their negative traits make it hard to sympathise. It’s a very tricky line to skirt garnering empathy for unlikeable characters. It can be done but unfortunately it is not so in this case. And in a film which rotates around their shared trauma it’s a conflicting and unfortunate flaw in a weighty film.
Loveless is a complicated amble through the depths of human despair and selfishness, a contemplation of growing individualism and philosophical ailments of modern humanity. More than anything the film seems to be Andrey’s cynical answer to all the vapid romance tales that litter bookshelves and Netflix.
Loveless is in cinemas from 25th April through Palace Films.
