It's complicated, right?
You've gotta appreciate the complexities presented here. Gotta want to cheer the psychological conundrums and emotional chaos stirred up by these quiet characters, perhaps the ultimate show-and-don't-tell ensemble.
You gotta marvel at any story that produces such conflict: The actions you abhor you're certain you might at least consider, the bad guys might be right -- except, no, they're not, except that you've gotta consider...
Ever-loving gray.
And like Zvyagintsev's perfectly poised "The Return," you can close your fist around the plot, and then carry it around with you for eternity.
But this time the utter minimalism of the film is less organic. This project and it's sparse dialogue, it's slow unraveling and deliberate, painstakingly slow stitching of scenes is tedious.
A slow build could've been haunting, but here it's so purposeful and showy that it's distracting and feels pretentious, as though Zvyagintsev is saying: "I've got such a fine story and I'm such a superior director, and you cannot have anything better to do than to look at my pictures, so I'm going to force you to focus on each frame for exactly one minute before I move on and insist you spend another minute studying the next frame too."
It's more a trip through a museum than a motion picture, with static scenes that take so long in spots that I wasn't sure if I'd encountered a technical problem, if the thing froze.
It's a different tact, sure. And I get that it's giving viewers the opportunity to observe the characters in their habitat without a lot of interference, that I'm being afforded the opportunity sleuth around their tasteful modern lives/crowded tenement lifestyle. The problem is that it's all spoon-fed so slowly that you find yourself starving for more nutrients.
And the inaction is uneven, because a burst of violence toward the end is apropos of almost nothing and is weirdly annoying.
When the film finally ends, you appreciate the symmetry, but you're not moved especially, having just taken in a mighty complex "meh."
And then, for the next few days, Elena will haunt you.
Like "Paranormal Activity" might have. Because it'll be hard to shake the feeling, as you complete the most mundane tasks around your home, that you're being recorded, that you might be part of a slow-moving, humane thriller.
So those slllow scenes you were so irritated with during the film suddenly have new resonance, and wouldn't you know it, that adds yet another layer of complexity.
You've gotta appreciate the complexities presented here. Gotta want to cheer the psychological conundrums and emotional chaos stirred up by these quiet characters, perhaps the ultimate show-and-don't-tell ensemble.
You gotta marvel at any story that produces such conflict: The actions you abhor you're certain you might at least consider, the bad guys might be right -- except, no, they're not, except that you've gotta consider...
Ever-loving gray.
And like Zvyagintsev's perfectly poised "The Return," you can close your fist around the plot, and then carry it around with you for eternity.
But this time the utter minimalism of the film is less organic. This project and it's sparse dialogue, it's slow unraveling and deliberate, painstakingly slow stitching of scenes is tedious.
A slow build could've been haunting, but here it's so purposeful and showy that it's distracting and feels pretentious, as though Zvyagintsev is saying: "I've got such a fine story and I'm such a superior director, and you cannot have anything better to do than to look at my pictures, so I'm going to force you to focus on each frame for exactly one minute before I move on and insist you spend another minute studying the next frame too."
It's more a trip through a museum than a motion picture, with static scenes that take so long in spots that I wasn't sure if I'd encountered a technical problem, if the thing froze.
It's a different tact, sure. And I get that it's giving viewers the opportunity to observe the characters in their habitat without a lot of interference, that I'm being afforded the opportunity sleuth around their tasteful modern lives/crowded tenement lifestyle. The problem is that it's all spoon-fed so slowly that you find yourself starving for more nutrients.
And the inaction is uneven, because a burst of violence toward the end is apropos of almost nothing and is weirdly annoying.
When the film finally ends, you appreciate the symmetry, but you're not moved especially, having just taken in a mighty complex "meh."
And then, for the next few days, Elena will haunt you.
Like "Paranormal Activity" might have. Because it'll be hard to shake the feeling, as you complete the most mundane tasks around your home, that you're being recorded, that you might be part of a slow-moving, humane thriller.
So those slllow scenes you were so irritated with during the film suddenly have new resonance, and wouldn't you know it, that adds yet another layer of complexity.