Elena 2011
The third installment from Andrewi Zvyagintsev (after his success in Banishment and The return) had brought the audience back from a rural environment to a contemporary upper class city story. Yet, the coldness and alienation remains, if not become crueler than ever. Philip Grass’s trademark minimalistic music score, tidy cinematography from Mikhail Krichman (partnering with Zvyagintsev since the return) had certainly helped to create this tight but yet claustrophobic atmosphere.The story unfolded with a routine yet mundane relationship of an elderly couple , lonesome and confine from one another to the point that they could see as a Master/servant relationship (even though such distance had closed up eventually as the story goes on). The architectural references, esp. the luxurious but minimalistic apartment which they stayed (but in separate rooms); are all too clear to define their relationship. The husband, Vladimir, a wealthy Russian Businessman only met his wife (Elena), a caretaking nurse at his late age. Their only real conversion only happened in a breakfast table and argument soon broke out because of money issue. Both are having their off-spring from previous marriage which affects their own relationship with one other. Indeed, the real relationship of the couple was really with their own child, as have been a consistent theme applied by the director on his previous film. The way the mother (Elena) react over-protectively towards to her own incompetent sons; as well as the rich father’s frosty (but actually intimate) relationship with her spoiled yet nomad daughter (brilliantly played by Yelena Lyadova) had allowed the audience to take a closer look to the internal struggle/dilemma of their own characters.
From another perspective, these kind of struggles also reflected how capitalism affect the modern Russia, as evidenced on strong contrast between the protagonists’ apartment and her son’s cheap social housing. The desire of simply to stay afloat had never been stronger and as Elena shows at the end, one could do anything to help their next generation to have a better life. The ruthlessness of a mother and their need for doing anything possible to protect their own son, including committing a crime, had been shown mercilessly here in a similar way as with “Mother (2009)” from Korean director, Joon-ho Bong.
Indeed, the only character who can be truthful to herself and particularly, able to show any real affection to the one that she really cares, was Vladimir’s daughter. The scene where she and her father finally able to make up for their long term issue should be one of the highlight of the film, and probably one of the warmest spot, so much so it redeems Vladimir’s as once a very caring father. The rest, however, are simply ice cold and empty, as the weather outside and the branches from tree outside the flat.
More info
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1925421/
