Among the many horrible things happening right now in the world—beyond the rise of right-wing movements, bad enough in and of themselves—is Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Old men who wish to avoid consequences for their failures at home often choose to attack enemies, foreign and/or domestic. Such blatant corruption needs a carefully constructed framework to thrive, and in his latest film, Minotaur, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (Loveless) explores the monstrous embers smoldering in the ruins of post-Soviet totalitarianism.
As much as this is about a real-world conflict, our way in is through a seemingly banal domestic drama. Provincial industrialist Gleb (Dmitriy Mazurov), whose outwardly successful existence has given him money and some power, suspects that his wife, Galina (Iris Lebedeva), is cheating on him. And who could blame her if she were, given how little the trappings of wealth have made her happy? The primary caretaker of their teenage son, she only comes to life when she texts with a mysterious other.
Meanwhile, on the professional side, Gleb—along with other local leaders—is informed by the mayor that he will have to deliver a set number of workers to be drafted into the “special military operation” undertaken by the State. That would be the invasion of Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine, to which it was once joined at the hip through centuries of empire, sharing elements of culture, language, and religion, among other close bonds. Gleb must come up with 14 names to help the town reach its federally mandated quota. How he chooses those to sacrifice could be the entire plot of the movie.
Instead, Zvyagintsev takes his sweet, masterful time getting to the point, following Gleb as he investigates Galina’s dalliance. One thing leads to another and suddenly we are watching a procedural on how to get rid of a body, though no killer in his right mind would go about it in this way. Given Gleb’s status in the community, however, it doesn’t really matter how sloppy he is, for money and access buy protection. Much to our viewing pleasure, the terrible actions he undertakes have a dark comedy to them that makes it hard to look away.
In a narrative filled with camouflaged nightmares, perhaps the most disturbing scene comes towards the end, when a government spokesperson addresses the newly drafted soldiers as they prepare for the conflict ahead. Mangling the tenets of Christianity, he claims that, like Jesus, they will now be called upon to kill the enemy. It’s all delivered in the blandest of platitudes, this brand of authoritarianism unbothered by any need for eloquence.
Zvyagintsev ends his tale on a family vacation to Crete, home to the mythical creature that lends the film its title. Before then, he offers a call-out to Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1957 anti-war film The Cranes Are Flying, where earlier poor fools also forfeited their lives as cannon fodder. Some things never change. At least we have great art to remind us of what’s always at stake: our whole humanity, without the fascist bull’s head.
Christopher Llewellyn Reed
Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.