Loveless

[Zvyagintsev’s wide-screen] technique peaked with the searing anti-Putin allegory Leviathan, Zvyagintsev’s best film to date, in which his compositions take on a political dimension, making the characters seem like pawns in a system beyond their control. His latest feature, Loveless, is no less cold or bitter than Leviathan and uses its wide-screen frame almost as effectively. The characters tend to be isolated from each other, the physical space between them reflecting their emotional distance.

As George Orwell famously wrote in “1984,” “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” Without a past to rely on, people are cut off from sources of strength, community, fellow feeling. Children are the ultimate victims. . . . “Loveless” is a hopeless film, and in the current atmosphere in Russia, admitting hopelessness is a radical act. “Loveless” is not afraid to call things by their proper names.

Zvyagintsev rhymes stifling domestic rituals—including those of the obviously doomed relationship that Boris is forging with Masha—with the office protocol at the corporation where Boris works. Lunchtime has rarely looked so uncomfortable in cinema as it does here. Zvyagintsev emphasizes the assembly-line monotony of the cafeteria and the ill-fitting suits worn by men who worry that divorces could destroy their legacy at the faceless corporation that employs them.