안드레이 즈뱌긴체프의 영화 『리바이어던』 연구

Abstract

In Leviathan, which director Andrei Zviagintsev has described as a loose retellingof the Book of Job, an ordinary man must wrestle with his faith not in Godbut in the Russian state — an epic struggle against a monster with many facespossessed of the capacity to bend the law to suit its own appetites. Resistanceis futile, as they say, and yet this stunning satire’s embattled patriarch valiantlyperseveres for the sake of his family, even as it crumbles around him. Its large ambitions are discernible from the bold, extended opening sequence,as Philip Glass’s music accompanies striking ‘Scope images of a massivemountainous coastal landscape strewn with the skeletal remains of rotting boats. It’s hard to tell – this is summer in the far north – whether it’s dusk or dawnas a man leaves his house and drives through the tundra to a station where hemeets another man. Only rather later do we discover why Dmitrii(Vladimir Vdovitchenkov) hascome to visit Kolia(Aleksei Serebriakov), his attractive young second wifeLilia(Elena Liadova) and his teenage son from his previous marriage, Roma(SergeiPokhodaev): Shelevyat(Roman Madianov), the local mayor, has slapped acompulsory order on Kolia’s family home, offering risible compensation for theprime site where he plans to build something that will be to his own personaladvantage. Dmitrii, an old army friend of Kolia, is now a hotshot lawyer livingin Moscow, and he’s gathered some highly incriminating evidence which he believeswill force the mayor to back down, notwithstanding the verdict of an inevitablycorrupt court. In Zviagintsev’s former films, from 2003 Venice Film Festival winner The Returnto Elena, the helmer meditatively held certain shots to the brink of patience. Withthe exception of this drawn-out courtroom scene, which he plays for absurdistcomedy, and a few extended driving sequences, Leviathan typically moves muchfaster, covering far more ground over the course of its densely packed narrative.