Leviathan: Whale Bones And Rotten Humanity

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan (2014) teems with a range of emotions and ideas. The film concerns a father fighting to save his family and property; although  the narrative is linear, Zvyagintsev does not tether it to a single protagonist but follows three key characters. Alongside superb performances, Mikhail Krichman’s cinematography and Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin’s script guide the viewer on a bleak journey along the shores of the Barents Sea. The film’s unsettling atmosphere seeps into the audience’s psyche; this disquieting mood is its primary achievement. Drawing from the words of Lukács, Arendt, and Adorno, this essay unpacks some of Leviathan’s preoccupations, from corrupt bureaucracy to the exploitation of female labour and the banality of evil.

At the film’s centre is Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov), who lives with his wife and teenage son in a wood-frame house by a scenic lake in rural Russia. The film centres on the escalating psychological and physical violence between Kolya and Mayor Vadim (Roman Madyanov), a local politician determined to seize the man’s house and land. In Leviathan, however, the actual story lies in the characters’ everyday actions and exchanges. A critical scene finds Kolya sharing a drink with his close friend and lawyer Dmitry (Vladimir Vdovichenkov). Kolya is on the verge of losing the land to which he is emotionally and spiritually attached. However, this loss occurs not through physical coercion, but at least in part through the system encircling him. In this scene, Kolya’s pride (“I built this place with my own hands”) and his steadfast commitment to protecting “[his] ancestors’ land” suggest an emotional bond with his turf forged through labour.

In his 1923 essay, “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” Georg Lukács explains that the generalisation of the commodity form creates inevitable and objective social laws that appear to be second nature.  Kolya is “reified”  precisely through this process. As aggressive as he routinely is toward his wife and child, once in court, Kolya listens to Dmitry and falls silent. Gradually, the character ceases to be himself and becomes a more passive figure. Kolya’s scenic property sits by the seafront, a place so beautiful which the mayor, Vadim, tries to expropriate through some shady bureaucratic subterfuge. As his land is seized, Kolya is “reified”. On the other hand, in another example of “degeneration” (Goff, 2022, p. 16), Mayor Vadim conducts his corrupt business under a portrait of Vladimir Putin that adorns his office wall; seen through the prism of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Leviathan is concerned with the ways in which this corrupt order is legalised – or more accurately, systematised. Police, municipality, and church: power is embodied by several institutions in the film, as Zvyagintsev turns it into an organism with many wings. 

Dmitry, in turn, is one of Leviathan’s most singular characters. Originally from Moscow, the lawyer believes he can break this whole unfair system, that he is different from the others, and maybe even superior to them. But to borrow from Adorno and the Frankfurt School, he is just a pawn maneuvered by the system (Jarvis, 1998, p.73). In the culture industry, the customer is not the king; he is not its subject but its object. The idealist Dmitry, however, is not aware of this, and truly believes that he can singlehandedly change this corrupt order. That is until he loses the case, and Mayor Vadim, in a drunken rage, threatens him. The altercation prompts Dmitry to confront the mayor, armed with documents obtained through Ivan – a friend of his from Moscow. Though the exact content of the documents is never revealed, Dmitry’s tone and insinuations make it clear they contain incriminating material. Gradually, Dmitry winds up relying on the very same criminal stratagems he’s trying to eradicate; in so doing, he becomes part of what Adorno called the “corrupt resistance.” On the other hand, the recreational activities of Kolya’s community also reflect a deep-seated hopelessness. The staggering alcohol consumption doesn’t provide relief but only drives people more restless and depressed. In one early juncture, Zvyagintsev finds Kolya and friends getting drunk and shooting portraits of former political leaders. But the act doesn’t register as a protest so much as a desperate cry. Notably, when Kolya asks his pal Stepan (Sergey Bachurskiy) if they could practice with more recent politicians, the man  replies that they prefer to wait a while after a leader’s death before pulling the trigger.

 Halfway through the film, Dmitry asks Lilya to flee to Moscow with him; though she refuses, she realises she cannot keep on living like this. Zvyagintsev captures her as she leaves the house in the middle of the night and heads for the cliffs. Once her body is found at sea, Kolya is convicted for the murder and sent to prison. Tempting as it may be to see him as the victim in this story, that would be Lilya. Her death may be one of Leviathan’s most ambiguous elements, but Zvyagintsev makes no secret of the psychological and physical violence she suffers throughout. Whether she was killed by her husband (or mayor Vadim) or wound up taking her own life, her plight suggests a long and uninterrupted history of exploitation centred on corrupt bureaucracy and violent masculinity.

On the other hand, the film also exemplifies Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on the banality of evil. In this unnamed corner of Russia, evil has become an ordinary thing. The local priest, aside from fulfilling his religious duties, is only interested in continuing his illegal business with the mayor. And the mayor himself acts as a flag man to the town’s networks of power. He can threaten a lawyer with a gun or send a newly-widowed man to prison by slandering him. Not that Kolya is any different from them; mistreating Lilya is something of a sort of routine for him. Zvyagintsev and co-scribe Oleg Negin see evil as an omnipresent force, as commonplace for people as breathing.

Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan has a multi-layered structure that can be analysed through the writings of many thinkers, from Arendt to Adorno, via Gramsci and Lukács. Rather than simply telling a story, Zvyagintsev is holding up a mirror to our present-day society; one should not presume that the film’s primary purpose is to criticise Russian bureaucracy simply because Zvyagintsev is Russian, or because the story takes place there. It stands to reason that the town’s name should remain hidden. Leviathan’s tale of land dispossession concerns something much more universal: the ways in which humanity shrinks in a globalising world.  

Bibliography:

Kavolulakos, K. (2017) “Lukacs’ Theory of Reification and the Tradition of Critical Theory” in M. J. Thompson (ed.) Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 67-86).

Jarvis, S. (1998) “The Culture Industry” in Adorno: A Critical Introduction, New York: Routledge, pp. 72-89).

Goff, G. C. (2022). Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev and Philosophical Progression. Journal of Religion & Film, 26(1), 53.