tstromsn Everything than can go wrong in a human's life happens in this movie. To the point it starts to feel a bit stupid. Also some scenes drags out too much to the point you ask if it was necessary to have them there. Also some very weird character choices that makes you wonder. But it had very good acting and interesting story and characters. So I would recommend watching it.

annaborovkova Spoiler Alert!Leviathan is a 2014 drama directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in Foreign Language. The film tells the story of a confrontation between ordinary men Kolya and the corrupt mayor Vadim. Mayor wants to expropriate the land where Kolya's house is built, Kolya believes that the mayor will use this land for his own purpose and fight for the right to deny the expropriation. The setting of the film is the fictional town of Pribrezhniy, we understand that the city is small and that nothing extraordinary is happening there. The town also is not different from the other small town in Russia. It feels like the director is telling to the viewer that similar story could have happened in any Russian town. The film is an open critique of the corrupted governmental and local officials. This could be surprising because the film is made with the help of Russian ministry of culture. Yet, Leviathan brings up the themes that are not discussed explicitly in the Russian society. The film not only shows the issue of the corruption and the morality of the official's deeds, it also shows that the vulnerability of the officials and the inside hierarchy. For example, Dmitrii (the lawyer from Moscow) threaten Vadim with a compromising evidence. Therefore, we see that there is inside hierarchy and the official from Moscow stand above the ones in a smaller town of Russia and that they have the tools to replace them. Vadim's anxiety after Dmitrii threats supports this claim. The movie shows that all of the officials are interconnected in all of the affairs: when the mayor position is threatened, the other officials feel that they might lose their positions as well, so they start to act to support themselves and the corrupted mayor. It is interesting that film proposes that the ordinary people of Pribrezhniy are also complicit in the entire situation. They are complicit because of their ignorance and passivity. We see people who take of Roma at the end, they are not bad people and they decided to help the boy. Yet, they are not ready to act against the officials. Furthermore, they do not see beyond the facts that are presented to them, thus we can say that they ignore the issue and the actual truth. At the same time, Zvyagintsev shows that even intelligentsia is not ready to be active. Dmitrii as a part of the intelligentsia is fully aware of the situation, however, when the threats are starting to be about his private life he decided to flee and not to help. All of this creates the atmosphere of despair. Kolya is not able to protect this house and the citizen themselves are not able to oppose the government – Leviathan. As in the biblical text, the people are not able to fight with this creature and in a Hobbesian term, they give up all of their freedom and their rights. Therefore, the film shows this despair and how ordinary people are unable to fight the government. The film ends in the same manner as it started with the nature sequence. However, the end of the film is happening during the winter time. And we see same shots as in the beginning, but the river and everything is frozen there. This demonstrates the stagnation, and that after the Kolya's case this despair even strengthened. Yet, the very last shot of the film shows the strong sea that is not frozen and this might illustrate the hope that is present in Russian society.

The_late_Buddy_Ryan "Leviathan" is a visually stunning and powerful film—maybe "overpowering" would be a better word, since w/d Andrei Zvyagintsev tends to make his political points with (spoiler alert?) all the subtlety of a backhoe bucket… The standoff between hard-drinking, two-fisted Kolya and Vadim—the local satrap who covets Kolya's little piece of land for a project of his own (we don't find out what it is till the final scene)—is involving and suspenseful. The tensions in Kolya's household—especially the disruptions caused by the handsome guest from Moscow—make for a fine, simmering subplot, but after these story lines collide (an event we have to imagine for ourselves, since we don't actually see it on screen), it's just one damn thing after another till the film's bleak conclusion. I can't blame AZ for giving us such a pummeling to drive his point home, given the current state of affairs in Putin's Russia—and it seems to be working for him, since few other Russian directors get much traction in the West—but I didn't really appreciate what an amazing film this is till I'd had a chance to walk it off for a while… (One critic predicts you'll "stumble out of the theater," which seems about right.) You may have heard "Leviathan" described as a remake of the Book of Job; it is, with the proviso that it's the Leviathan (Job 41) that's calling the shots now, not Yahweh. Maybe it's not surprising that the satirical jabs at the Church seem like they're right out of an old Soviet propaganda film—I particularly liked the scene where the parish priest tosses a loaf of bread to a couple of snuffling porkers in a pen, then tries to feed Kolya a very slanted synopsis of the biblical tale. (Job's life starts to turn around, says Father Nikolai, when he decides to stop complaining…)PS—Just read (03/21/16) in the NY Times that "Leviathan"'s spawned a minor tourist industry in the town where it was filmed. Visitors come to see the Northern Lights, take classes in something called "snowkiting" and see for themselves if life there is really as horrible as it seems to be in the film

sergepesic Unforgiving, stark landscape of Northern Russia. Hard lives, tough people. Andrei Zvyagintsev, author of few masterpieces (" Elena", above the others comes to mind ),is telling a story of the corrupt system and helpless individual that stands in its way. It is a very taxing job for a viewer to follow the plight of Kolya and his family. The director shows no mercy piling up image after image, till the full picture of utter despair emerges in the end. This is not a black and white propaganda piece. There are no angels and perfect heroes in this world. Even the wronged and victimized fall short, drowning their sorrows in gallons of vodka. But, then if these were our lives what other option would be available? Brave, unflinching portrayal of not just Putin Russia, but of any and every society in which corruption seems to be as natural as the air we breed.