“Minotaur,” a pitch-black take a look at corruption in Putin period Russia, was greeted with a thunderous, eight-minute standing ovation on the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday.
The movie marks the return to the Croisette of Andrey Zvyagintsev, the Oscar-nominated auteur, whose earlier movies, “The Banishment,” “Leviathan” and “Loveless” additionally bowed at Cannes. Zvyagintsev, his eyes misting because the applause within the Lumière Theatre saved constructing, was flanked by the movie’s stars Dmitriy Mazurov and Iris Lebedeva, who play a pair whose marriage is rocked by infidelity and deception. They have been additionally joined within the auditorium by Boris Kudrin, who performs their teenage son Seryozha — at one level Mazurov tousled Kudrin’s hair.
“I’m grateful to all of you, the audience here at the Lumière theater, for welcoming us so warmly and for giving us the opportunity to make this film and share it with you,” Zvyagintsev instructed the group.
“Minotaur” follows Gleb (Mazurov) a affluent businessman as he tries to maintain his firm operating easily whereas the authorities preserve pressuring him to supply lists of workers they’ll draft to feed the frontlines of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. On the identical time, Galina (Lebedeva) has launched into a torrid affair that threatens to destroy the life that Gleb has constructed. The movie was impressed by Claude Chabrol’s “La femme infidèle,” which additionally served as the premise of Adrian Lyne’s “Unfaithful.” Due to its scathing take a look at Putin-ism, “Minotaur” was shot in Latvia, which doubles for Russia.
“Minotaur” marks Zvyagintsev’s return to filmmaking after practically a decade, a interval wherein he virtually died.
“I spent almost one year in a clinic in Germany, where after spending 40 days [in a medically induced] coma I was not able to stand up,” he told Variety. “When I left the clinic, I moved to France and I decided to stay in France. And more and more, I’m convinced that I should stay here. I have no desire and no interest and no intention to live in a country that’s at war with its neighbors.”
Based mostly on the reception at Cannes, “Minotaur” looks as if a powerful contender for the Palme d’Or, alongside the likes of Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland,” Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord,” and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden.”
