Andrey Zvyagintsev is Russia's most famous contemporary filmmaker and yet not invited to events such as the FIPRESCI Colloquium on contemporary Russian cinema in St. Petersburg. He is considered a "Western" filmmaker who makes Russia appear in too negative a light. Zvyagintsev himself has compared his film with Ingmar_Bergman, as he also shows the bitter divorce of a couple. Since Loveless takes a ruthless look at modern life and its bitter protagonists, I can think of even more comparisons to the author's cinema of the last 50 years. In contrast to comparable models from Europe, however, it seems impossible to me to imagine Zvyagintsev's works as a settlement with the flourishing West as a whole. His films are set in Russia and are about Russia only. So this isn't just a dysfunctional marriage. Loveless works like a metaphor for this very Russian society that produces such characters. And the marriage of Boris (Alexey Rozin) and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) is already in ruins when we meet them for the first time. They were aching, every sentence sounds contempt. Objectively it's simply about where the twelve-year-old Alyosha should stay after the separation. Neither of them want him. So there is only one boarding school left, because there he already learns discipline. Alyosha has to join the army later anyway! During the conversation Zhenya has to go to the toilet. The camera hangs behind the door where Alyosha stands in twilight. With a face distorted in desperation. Loveless shows us feelings that resemble an abyss of pain. Most of the time, however, the characters seem to be stunned. They are busy with themselves and their smartphones. During the first half, Loveless sheds light on the end of a marriage. Both have already started new relationships; they with a rich entrepreneur, he with a younger one. Bori's young wife is pregnant, his main concern is his work. Then suddenly Alyosha disappears. Not only from his environment, but completely from the film. The second half of Loveless is like a thriller and tells of the search for Alyosha. It is about the ignorance of the police and the growing despair of parents. Loveless plays in Russia, a country with trains of the apocalypse. It is a parable and yet always maintains the balance between metaphorics and realism. The title could hardly be more precise. The whole marriage was loveless from the beginning. Especially from Zhenya's point of view, who got pregnant unintentionally and was afraid of an abortion. Where does this willless submission to a loveless relationship come from? Zvyagintsev suggests the answer, since during the search for the boy we also get to know the religious mother of Zhenya. Boris only calls her "Stalin in a skirt". The search for Alyosha, in turn, makes us understand why people in need help each other. Isn't it just to make yourself feel a little better? But this is not the only social reprimand Loveless is making an effort to make. During the last minutes of the film we experience together with the protagonists a news program about the annexation of Ukraine. How little does this official version of the Russian media have in common with the artist Andrey Zvyagintsev's vision of his country?
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