Elena (2011)

Moscow. An elderly couple, upper-class. Or he is, she is married to him, belongs to him. She goes visiting her family in another part of the town. They have money problems (the son is depicted as irresponsible) and she has a bad conscience: obligingly, she brings money packages. The husband has a stroke, and their life situation is drastically changed. The setting of Andrey Zvyagintsev's (he's the guy who made the brilliant The Return) Elena is simple, minimalist even. The chilly cinematography establishes the mood, the alienation, the repressed feelings. Every frame is a meticulous composition and the paradox of how the film works on me is its shift from distance to sudden intimacy. Most of the film takes place in apartments. From the first frames onwards, this viewer was gripped by claustrophobia. There's the sterile, luxurious apartment of Elena and her husband Vladimir. We see immediately that they cannot be happy, despite the sex. Vladimir wears expensive watches and treats human beings like - well, it is even hard to describe his coldness. Zvyagintsev probes into their unsettling relationship and the camera lingers, even when we start to feel that we cannot stand look at how they go about their everyday life. As Vladimir gets sick, Elena must confront his spoiled daughter who apparently hates everything her father stands for, even though she seems scarily similar to him. This somber movie takes a stern look at class society. It might not be the most focused film in the world, but what I think Zvyagintsev excels in is a depiction of joylessness, spiritual emptiness. He depicts a family who wastes the little money they have and the elderly couple for whom money is no problem. These class relations are most often expressed as contempt and guilt. Violence lurks everywhere, in the outskirts of Moscow and in the strangely empty luxury blocks where Vladimir shuttles from his apartment to his gym. This world is stripped to its very basics. A tv is broadcasting game shows and the volume is barely audible. A family is having tea around a table, restless gazes. Suddenly: a hand-held camera films boys fighting. The film offers very few openings to other possibilities. Yet then again, even though the ending provides no resolution, it tunes into a new sense of calm. Elena is the center of the movie and in her choices and reactions we see a stubborness and resilience that in some strange way might be rendered as a kind of hope. Or should one rather say that Elena is a story about a world that makes people harden their hearts - the purpose of life being reduced to: to go on?