Elena (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2011)

Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev made a big impression on the arthouse movie world (and myself) with his debutfilm The Return, a very intense family drama portraying the relationship between a father and his two sons. Elena is the directors third film (I still have to watch his The Banishment) and shares the family thematic with The Return. Just like many other arthouse films it became a slow and dense picture, which is good in most aspects but unfortunately cannot top the director’s debut.

The title character Elena is an older woman who has a relationship with the wealthy and somewhat distant Vladimir. They have met in a later stage of their life and have been married for two years. Elena has a grandson who has to go to the army since the family cannot afford to send him to university, which apparently is his only way out. His parents, Elena’s son Sergey and his wife, are unemployed and don’t really intend to do their best to find at least one job. To make matters worse they just had a baby. Not a very bright future prospect.

Elena asks her husband Vladimir for financial funds to support her lowlife son and grandchildren. Vladimir, who has a troubled relationship with his only spoiled daughter, refuses to pay for them, since he believes the family could try harder. Elena’s offspring is portrayed as the typical drinking and antisocial lowlife, positioning Vladimir in a righteous position from an audience point of view.

When Vladimir ends up in the hospital after a heart attack he gets reunited with his daughter Katya. This results in one of the best scenes of the film. It contains great dialogue, acting and some interesting insights. Katya has a very hedonistic lifestyle and doesn’t deserve a potential heritage according to Elena, who gets more and more desperate about her family situation since Vladimir keeps refusing to support the ‘lazy bums’.

Just like he did in The Return, Zvyagintsev uses some beautiful imagery and long takes to portray the different family situations. Vladimir (and Elena) lives in a very cold and well organized house. He has daily structures and routines and just like his apartment his life seems to be in perfect order. This can’t be said about the household of Elena’s son Sergey. His messy, small, disorganized house is both a metaphor for his life as it is a realistic setting. The social differences are very well displayed and may be recognizable.

I will not spoil anything, but as to be expected (for those familiar with the director’s work, and as an arthouse cliché almost) this movie has no Hollywood ending, to say the least. The ending gave me an uncomfortable feeling and I am afraid Zvyagintsev gives a realistic insight in the social differences and cause and effect for in this case the Russian society (but it seems pretty universal).

Despite some good scenes, beautiful shots and metaphors Elena is not perfect. It doesn’t always manages to keep your full attention due to certain story developments (you might call it partly predictable in a way). Somehow I expected more from especially the last half hour, but the director chooses to let us observe events that only give us an idea of social patterns and doesn’t deliver the expected climax. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t distinguish itself from a handful of other films within its genre (think of some English kitchen sink pictures). Nevertheless Zvyagintsev manages to make a very decent and compelling observation of the differences and choices the different social classes tend to make. He is definitively a talented and promising filmmaker. Elena will not be remembered as his best film I believe.

7.5/10