Elena
Dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev
2011
****
Andrey
Zvyagintsev is probably my favorite Russian film maker working today. While I
believe it unfair to compare him to Andrei Tarkovsky, as so many people have, I
do believe he could follow Tarkovsky, Sergei Paradjanov, Grigori Kozintsev and
Sergei Eisenstein as one of the greats. I thought it when I first saw The
Return back in 2003 and his few films made since has convinced me further. His
2011 social drama is a vivid evocation of Moscow society, and as Roger Ebert
said before he died, shoot the film in black and white and cast Barbara
Stanwyck as Elena, and you'd have a 1940s classic. Elena tells the story
of the social and cultural distance within Moscow society by focusing on the
inhabitants of an exclusive apartment in downtown Moscow and a
crumbling khrushchevka in Moscow's industrial suburb. Nadezhda
Markina plays Elena, a woman with a proletarian background who met her husband
Vladimir, an elderly business tycoon, in a hospital when she was his nurse. Her
social position and social rank were substantially increased by the marriage to
such a wealthy man but this isn’t extended to her family. Elena's son from a
previous marriage is poor and wants money from Vladimir to send his 17-year-old
son to university, keeping him out of the compulsory military service. Her son
and his family live in a crumbling apartment in the industrial suburb. After
being approached by Elena, not for the first time, Vladimir makes it clear that
he is not going to subsidize Elena's relatives, and informs her that he plans
to make emendations to his will leaving his wealth to his only daughter from an
earlier marriage with some residual monthly payments to be made to Elena. Elena
is terrified by the prospects of such a new will and is humiliated by the man
she thought loved him over everything. She realises she’s lived under him since
their marriage and, following a minor heart-attack, decides to murder him by
switching his own medicines with Viagra, which would be lethal in his
post-infarct state. When he dies in bed, she destroys the handwritten version
of the new will which he had not yet been able to formalise with his attorney.
Following the destruction of these handwritten notes she then calls officials
to find the dead body in bed with her claim that she has no idea and no sense
of how and why he died. The death is found upon medical examination to have
been caused by the foolish abuse of medications by Vladimir himself, and the
actions of Elena as the culprit are completely overlooked. In the absence of a
formal will, he dies intestate and Elena inherits half his estate with the
other half going to his only daughter. Elena then takes a substantial amount of
money to her son in order to pay for her grandson's education. She is thanked
and receives the unexpected news that her son's wife is expecting another
child. With Elena keeping her part in Vladimir's death a complete secret from
her son, her son then gets his wife to open the liquor cabinet in order for the
family to toast their announcement of his wife's pregnancy and the future
college career of Elena's grandson. Elena's family then decide to move from
their decrepit apartment to Vladimir's wealthy home where Elena became the sole
occupant after Vladimir's death, in order to start a new life together with
Elena. The morganatic marriage featured in the film is Moscow laid bare for the
rest of the world to witness, and while the film feels classically French in
style (I’m thinking Zvyagintsev was clearly influenced by Claude Chabrol), the
conclusion is a modern day October revolution, only on a smaller and more
personal scale. The stinger comes when you realise that everything Vladimir and
his nasty daughter feared has actually come true. We’re happy for Elena but
that doesn’t make her actions right. Her family are generally all of the bad
things Vladimir said they were and they have indeed taken over his home. For me
the film highlights the need for social balance and a progression away from the
idea of the class system. Oddly enough, the film came about when British producer Oliver
Dungey proposed a project with four films made by four different
directors, all touching upon the topic of apocalypse. For about a month,
director Andrey Zvyagintsev and screenwriter Oleg
Negin looked for a plot and found two or three curious concepts. Negin
then phoned Zvyagintsev one night and he told the director almost the complete
plot of the future film. The story is based on an incident from Negin's life
and not really about the apocalypse at all. They pressed ahead anyway with the
film to be made in English under the name Helen, with Elena, Vladimir and
Sergey called Helen, Richard and Dan, respectively. Zvyagintsev soon dropped
the idea when he realized working with an English producer meant
"overcoming the issues of the creative method, of the language of
cinema." Soon he proposed the script to Alexander Rodnyansky and
the next day after Rodnyansky read it, he phoned the director and said,
"Let's start." The film is seamless, crafted by master film makers
who have made it look easy. The acting is also perfect, With Nadezhda Markina
and Andrey Smirnov giving perfect performances. Elena Lyadova is also perfectly
hateable in her role that really should have been bigger. Andrey
Smirnov was Zvyagintsev's only choice to play Vladimir. The director
usually doesn't let his actors read the script before filming but he gave it to
Smirnov when he offered him the role. At first Smirnov, himself a director, had
no intention to act in the film and warned Zvyagintsev during the casting that
he couldn't interrupt the editing process of Zhila-byla odna baba, his
first film in over 30 years. Zvyagintsev came to Smirnov's place about a month
after the casting in order to try to persuade him to star and Smirnov said it
was out of the question as he was too busy editing his film, but his wife and
son, who were at home too, lashed out at Smirnov, saying he couldn't refuse an
offer from a director like Zvyagintsev. The latter promised to adjust the
filming schedule for Smirnov. In the end, Smirnov filmed his role when he had
days off in April 2010 and managed to devote two weeks to filming in May. He
accidentally broke his ribs while filming but didn’t tell anyone as he was to
embarrassed, so those scenes in the gym where it looks like he’s in pain – he
is! It’s a brilliant film, made by real creative professionals.
