[MOVIE REVIEW/ESSAY] The Three Different Myths in Andrey Zvyagintsev's Minotaur

"There are two sides in this world: the side of empathy and compassion, and the side of destruction" - Andrey Zvyagintsev (paraphrased)

Rating: 4.5/5

    Just yesterday, I had the absolute honor of seeing Minotaur by Andrey Zvyagintsev in the Sydney State Theatre. What commenced after I took my seat was a mastery in storytelling, pacing, situational irony, merging of the Marxist and gender lenses, and directorial prowess. Zvyagintsev said in a Q&A after the movie that he did not write this movie for a target audience; rather, this movie is meant to provide a realistic snapshot of the modern day. This film fully comes to fruition in this regard. As for my personal review, I will split it into two sections: the first will be a non-spoiler general overview of what this film does particularly well and the second will be a much more spoiler-heavy analytical insight into the film's meaning.

    Zvyagintsev's Minotaur centers around Gleb, a CEO of a struggling Russian company in which many of his employees leave to seek refuge in Georgia due to the current Russo-Ukrainian war. He resides in a luxury house with his teenage son Seryozha and wife Galina, who he suspects is having an affair. What is done extraordinarily well about these two crises is that they are kept separate from each other until there is no option but for these two different stories to collide into one. Though the film's protagonist is an affluent business tycoon, Zvyagintsev also deeply portrays the emotions and positions of many of the characters involved in the drama; it's a movie that is not afraid to shift its focus into another world that it leaves its audience to explore. I would be a fool if I didn't also mention the pacing of this movie; by far, the pacing is the most breathtaking element of this film. The fast-paced investigative style that leads into a cascade of revelations at the beginning of the movie is turned into an excruciatingly tense slow-burn after the climax. But the film is not all tension: there are several moments of humor sprinkled in the movie through clever situational irony that made my entire theatre burst into laughter. Despite what you might gather from the synopsis, the movie is definitely not as dark as it seems.

    To be sure, I think it can definitely be said that this movie does not offer a lot of hope (if any). There is an expectation that you build throughout this film that there will be reconciliation and justice; there are many moments that seemingly foreshadow an upcoming reckoning. However, this reckoning, for reasons that are illustrated in the film, never comes. It's definitely not a vice of the film, the subverted expectation is an intentional choice that realistically delineates the current snapshot of our world. But, with that said, I'm unsure if what we need from art right now is less hope. It's the same problem I had when I watched Sirāt (though in Sirāt, this problem is amplified to an unbearable extent). Regardless, you can still at least deeply appreciate how well this movie continuously subverts your expectations. With all of these subversions, I believe it's very possible that, in time, Minotaur may be regarded as one of the few artistic masterpieces that are in existence.

[SECTION 2: SPOILERS]

    To understand what makes this movie a potential masterpiece, one must understand the myth of the Minotaur. After Minos is put in competition with his brothers to be the King of Crete, he prays to Poseidon who then gives Minos a white bull to sacrifice in order to be the King of Crete. In adoration of the bull, Minos sacrifices one of his other animals, hoping Poseidon would not notice. In response, a raging Poseidon makes Minos' wife, Queen Pasiphaë, fall in love with the bull, which eventually leads to the birth of the Minotaur. The Minotaur is notably very destructive and violent, forcing Minos to put him inside a labyrinth. After Athens kills Minos' son, Minos forces the city to send 14 of its people each year into the labyrinth to be fed to the Minotaur. That is, until Theseus volunteers to go into the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur. I argue that in Andrey Zvyagintsev's Minotaur, we see three symbolic portrayals of the myth of the Minotaur: the personal portrait, the political portrait, and the portrait that combines the two.

    The personal portrayal of the Minotaur casts Gleb as Theseus. After Gleb grows suspicious over his wife's behavior of concealment, he asks his head of security Nikolai to look into the "delicate matter." Nikolai returns with a file on Anton, a photographer who Galina had been seeing. It is only at this point do we get a glimpse into Galina's encounters with Anton. To Gleb, Anton represents an intrusion into his personal life, perhaps even eradicating any hope left for a future with Galina. It's easy to see very early on that Gleb is not concerned with understanding or empathizing with Galina; rather, he hopes to maintain his ownership over her. After they have dinner with their friends, Galina and Gleb enter a tense scene in which Galina lashes out that all aspects of her life have been overturned with Gleb's preferences—she laments that she has lost whoever she once was. After Gleb witnesses Galina enter Anton's apartment complex, he returns to Anton's apartment later and enters the "labyrinth." We expect this to be a very fiery encounter, but instead, it's actually quite awkward. Anton, unlike the Minotaur, is not violent or rageful, and the two remain silent for quite an uncomfortable amount of time. Anton briefly leaves to make Gleb coffee, which leaves Gleb to discover the photos Anton took with Galina. Gleb tells Anton that he does not feel well, and as Anton leans down to get ice to make Gleb alcohol, Gleb bashes his head in using Anton's camera. This death perhaps mirrors the Minotaur's death—the supposed end of the destruction of Gleb's personal life. Of course, we never expect Galina to return to Gleb, but surprisingly, at the end of the movie, it seems as though the death of the "Minotaur" was successful. Gleb pockets Anton's photos, which Galina eventually discovers and figures out that Gleb was responsible for Anton's disappearance. The unspoken moment Gleb and Galina share in their bedroom represents their full understanding of the situation, and, in an act of forgiveness, they both lay their heads amongst each other. The personal life is resurrected with the death of the Minotaur.

    The political portrayal of the Minotaur is much more explicit. Also at the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to a city meeting scene in which the city mayor brings five businessmen (including Gleb) to explain that Russia is asking for more men to be drafted into the Russo-Ukrainian war. The city mayor then requests that two of the more prosperous businessmen pick 25 of their men to be drafted, while the other three men—including Gleb—must pick 14 of their men. Gleb reluctantly asks his project manager Natasha to recruit 14 of the most "disciplined" men to help with a new project. Here, we can already see the parallels between Russia's mobilization and the myth of the Minotaur. In this portrayal, the Minotaur is Russia's war itself, needing more men to sustain its own survival. Minos is Russia itself, demanding Athens (Gleb's business) to send 14 men into the labyrinth of war. What is particularly striking about this image of the myth is that Gleb does not necessarily push back against the regime to protect his men; though he is reluctant to pick 14 men, he views the slaughterhouse much more as an inconvenience than a destruction of humanity. He deals with this inconvenience by delegating the task, and when he is brought into a meeting room with the men to explain the "project," we can see how uncomfortable and unwilling he is to look at the men. When he learns that one of the men is Ivan, a 21 year old, his discomfort is heightened, and he leaves the room. It is a depiction of the guilt and shame that pervade into those in power when they are confronted with the harm they proliferate through their positions.

    Then, there is the third portrayal of the myth of the Minotaur, in which the personal and political are combined. After Gleb kills Anton, he goes on a type of odyssey to cover his tracks. After disposing of the body in the river, he calls Natasha to give him the information of Nikolai, who he replaces Ivan with in the draft form. Nikolai is taken from his family by draft officers in the middle of the night to go fight in the Russo-Ukrainian war, to which Gleb claims playing no part in the draft. In this portrayal, it can be seen that Gleb plays the part of King Minos, sacrificing the lesser bull Nikolai instead of the white bull Ivan in order to not be caught by the Russian police and maintain his status of power in Russian society. In this interpretation, the birth of the Minotaur has not yet commenced, perhaps indicating that the rage and havoc against the injustice done by those in power will eventually occur. This indication is also presented to the audience in another scene, in which those who have been drafted say their final goodbyes to their families. One of the soldiers' mothers screams for her son to come back and is held back before her son enters the military bus to be sent to war. The significance of this scene is a representation of the turmoil experienced by those in common Russian society. It is clear that the war's psychological effects are brewing the eventual monster.

    However, perhaps the most interesting thematic aspect of this film is that the philosophy it presents contrasts with Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. It clearly elucidates when the morals of consequentialism falter. The scenes after Anton's death are actually remarkably similar to Raskolnikov's killing of Alyona and Lizaveta. After the impulsive act, there is an uncomfortable amount of time spent trying to clean the murder. After putting the body in his car, Gleb experiences a Raskolnikov-like internal psychosis. He experiences paranoia, cries on the way to disposing the body, and fully misses his son's birthday party to sleep. In the following days, he receives a visit from two detectives, in which Gleb posits that Anton is at the Georgian border. And, of course, Gleb betrays Nikolai by sending him to war. But here is the twist: Gleb recruits the city mayor and asks him to put an end to the questioning of Anton's disappearance. After the detectives find security footage confirming Gleb's presence at the time of Anton's disappearance, they remark that they are powerless to do anything about it since they had already gotten a call from higher-ups to leave the case. They jokingly ask what their purpose is in Russian society and then leave to get lunch. Unlike Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, there is no furthered internal reckoning and Gleb does get away with the murder. If Dostoevsky were to present a philosophy against the idea of self-exceptionalism, Zvyagintsev twists this philosophy to say that some members of society are indeed exceptional to the rules of morality—they just have to be powerful enough to corrupt morality and justice altogether. The photographer, or rather, the documentarian, is disappeared. His photos are burned to ash, and in Szymborskian terms, he has become a "void." His death is never avenged; he is permanently censored without repercussions. Knowledge and truth remain concealed except for those who are primarily complicit.

    Thus, the "snapshot" of modern Russian society has been fully constructed through Zvyagintsev's multiple subversions of the myth of the Minotaur and his twists on pre-existing pragmatic philosophies. After winning the Grand Prix for this movie at Cannes, he asked for Russia to stop the "butchery" that is the war. There is a constant seeking that the audience and most probably even Zvyagintsev have for a return to truth and morality, and this truth and morality can only occur when we all deliberately choose the side of empathy and compassion. The depiction of the brashness of war and corruption of society that Minotaur achieves helps facilitate this empathy and compassion with a sense of urgency. The combination of these feelings amongst a collective can perhaps be the only thing that ends the polycrisis of the world.