There are no superlatives that can really do justice to Andrey Zvyagintsev's 'Leviathan.' It is an absolutely phenomenal film--unflinchingly honest, visually majestic, beautifully written and acted, stunning in its philosophical and moral implications. Hollywood routinely serves us predictable genre cartoons to turn a fast buck. This film stands as a towering repudiation of all that is meretricious, superficial, and phony in cinema as it grapples with the most profound questions of life: social oppression, injustice, love, betrayal, forgiveness, death, grief, and desolation. As other reviewers have noted, 'Leviathan' is a depressing film, even a harrowing one but there's a terrible beauty here.
