Nelyubov aka Loveless by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Nelyubov has
won the Jury Prize at the 2017 Cannes Festival, the most prestigious cinema
competition in my view.
It is also
nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.
And it is
an extraordinary achievement.
Loveless is
about Alyosha, a twelve year boy suffering the drama of his parents separation
and continuous fighting.
Boris and
Zhenya have had more than enough of each other and the only thing left is a
mutual hatred and a Loveless child.
In fact,
Zhenya’s version is that she has never loved Boris and she had been trapped in
a marriage she did not want.
-
Know thyself comes to mind
-
If any or both of the parents had
taken time to think about themselves and their relationship…
Zhenya is a
very attractive, beautiful woman, who is now in love with Anton and does not
care much about her son.
She feels
it was her mother and Boris who had pushed her to have the baby and then get
trapped into a situation she loathes.
Boris is
also involved with someone else, a young pregnant woman called Masha, who fears
she may suffer the same fate as Zhenya.
To add to
the already complicated status, Boris works for a sort of Orthodox
fundamentalist, who applies a sort of Christian sharia.
If the CEO
finds about the troubles and the inevitable divorce, the man would lose his job
and the income that offers security.
In a discussion
with a colleague, the solution seems to be to hire a woman with two children to
play the “fake family”.
A question
came to mind while watching this excellent film:
-
Why are these parents so absent?
-
Are they so self-absorbed,
preoccupied with their own failed marital relationship?
-
Is this the society we live in, with
selfies and constant checking of the phones, social networks that alienates
people?
-
Studies do show that those who take
time off from Facebook are feeling better
-
It has been established that this is
the medium in which many, if not show off their trips, achievements, even food,
while others are left to envy and grumble about their failure to compare
-
And do not compare yourself with
others is one of the key rules of Happiness!!
The fact is
that Alyosha is missing.
One morning,
after returning late the previous night, which was spent with her new partner,
Zhenya gets a message from school.
She is not
even able to tell if her child has been at home the night before and almost
anything else about his past twenty four hours.
The call to
her husband is yet another opportunity to exchange vicious words and
expletives, which have been strangely censored in the version of the film that I
saw.
When the
police arrive, the officer in charge is not very enthusiastic and talks about
the fact that the boy would return.
The mother
is unhappy with the fact that no official investigation is initiated and
nothing is about to be done.
-
Look “devushka”, I have been nice…another
in my place could have been less helpful and meaner!
-
And I am sure he is right!! Given the
fact that Russia is not really a democracy
He also
talks about the lack of resources, the many robberies, crimes and other
runaways they have to deal with.
But he has
a strange suggestion, that the parents contact a group of people who are
volunteers and find missing children.
They are stupendously
well organized, with SUVs, dozens of men and women, communication gear and
military-like rigor.
The parents
travel to Zhenya’s mother, an occasion for more offences, aggresivity and
vicious exchanges.
The grandmother
proves to be not the pleasant babushka I am used with from other films, but a
repressed, vile woman.
In all
this, the Nelyubov Alyosha is the victim and we do not know if they will find
him and what will happen to Boris and Zhenya.
Mesmerizing
motion picture
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu