Directed by: Andrei Zvyagintsev (Russia)
Staring: Maryana Spivak as Zhenya, Aleksey Rozin as Boris and Matvey Novikov as Alyosha, son of Zhenya and Boris
A couple fail to reconcile after their son, Alyosha, overhears a horrible argument in their cramped flat, and goes missing. Has he been kidnapped? Is the shy, unhappy 12 year old boy the basic cause or symptom of the collapse of his parents’ relationship? As the search fails to deliver results, a portrait of an entire society in crisis emerges. Loveless is a stark, mysterious and terrifying story of spiritual catastrophe: a drama with the ostensible form of a procedural crime thriller, its hypnotic intensity and unbearable ambiguity are compellingly maintained until the very end. This is a story of contemporary Russia, whose people are at the mercy of implacable forces in a loveless world, without the full means to support human life.
Loveless, which is like Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” dipped in battery acid, is a master class in melancholy.