Minotaur

War is never seen in MINOTAUR, yet it permeates every frame through the cynicism of power, official lies and a bureaucratic logic that turns human lives into expendable numbers. Loosely based on Claude Chabrol’s LA FEMME INFIDÈLE (1969), Andrey Zvyagintsev transforms a tale of adultery into a ruthless political allegory. When transport magnate Gleb is ordered to provide fourteen men for military conscription, personal complicity becomes an extension of state violence. Mikhail Krichman’s austere cinematography transforms Gleb’s immaculate glass mansion into a shadowy labyrinth of power and moral desolation, while the cramped yet colourful apartment of his wife’s lover, captured in a fluid long take, briefly opens a fragile space for intimacy and warmth. Dmitriy Mazurov and Iris Lebedeva deliver remarkably restrained performances, conveying inner collapse through the slightest of gestures. Meticulously composed images and measured camera movements evoke a world where authority seeps into even the most private relationships. With rigorous formal control and extraordinary visual intelligence, MINOTAUR reveals the true monster not as an individual, but as a system that quietly devours its own people. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)

Andrey Zvyagintsev: THE RETURN (2003), THE BANISHMENT (2007), ELENA (2011), LEVIATHAN (2014), LOVELESS (2017)