Leviathan

Only time will tell if Leviathan turns out to be the visionary Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev's finest film, given the stiff competition from his previous efforts like The Return or Elena, but it's certainly his gutsiest, most overtly political. Ostensibly, it's about a legal battle between homeowner Aleksey Serebryakov and the mayor of a small northern town who wants to buy the prime land on which Serebryakov's house is built. The dispute threatens to destroy his marriage to Elena Lyadova, and tear the town apart. However, the movie is also an acid-etched parable, encapsulating in microcosm the corruption that's metastasized through every institution in the country, from local government to the Russian Orthodox Church. As one would expect from a Zvyagintsev film, the performances are knockout, and the script drum-tight but it's the epic scope of the cinematography, and inspired use of music from Philip Glass's 1983 opera Akhnaten that make this a work of magisterial craftsmanship and sweep.