Andrey Zvyagintsev had many irons in the fire when he quickly fell ill with covid in the summer of 2021. He had difficulty breathing and asked his wife to call for an ambulance. After a month in hospital in Moscow, his condition had deteriorated so much that he was taken to Germany, via Berlin to a clinic in Hanover. His lung damage was so extensive that he was placed in an induced coma for about 40 days.
- It felt as if the light just went out. I remember exactly how it felt – it was like experiencing death. And I can safely say that there is nothing there on the other side. Just a great darkness and an absolute absence of reflection. Neither doubts nor fears, says Andrey Zvyagintsev with a quiet, almost Zen-like smile.
After the life-threatening infection, he also suffered from polyneuropathy, a damage to the peripheral nervous system. For several months he could neither breathe properly, move nor feel his arms and legs. He was forced to learn to walk and talk again. When he finally returned to life in early 2022, the world was different. Zvyagintsev was in France when Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the director, who throughout his career depicted the moral decay of his homeland, it was clear that there was no turning back.
- My wife and I barely had to talk about it. We foresaw the hell Russia would become. Above all, it was unbearable for us to be associated with Putin's insane aggression, says the Russian director when DN meets him on a sunny terrace in the festival palace shortly after the acclaimed world premiere of "Minotaur" in Cannes.
That he would respond to the war with a dark and morally philosophical allegory is perhaps not surprising. Zvyagintsev's films have always revolved around authoritarian power, corruption, family rifts and individual responsibility in a crumbling society. In "Leviathan", a local land dispute on the Barents Sea became a caustic satire on corruption in Putin's Russia. In "Saknaden" ("Loveless"), a loveless marriage became a kind of X-ray plate of a society where empathy and human closeness have weathered away.
Zvjagintsev had been tossing around the idea of making a Russian-language remake of Claude Chabrol's 60s classic "La femme infidèle" since 2018, but wanted to add a political dimension to the deadly and erotic jealousy thriller. Ironically, Putin helped with the final piece of the puzzle for the script in September 2022.
- Ten days after me and my French producer had shaken hands to make "Minotaur", the partial mobilization in Russia was announced. That disaster was naturally woven into the script, and that's when the idea of the Minotaur took shape, says Andrei Zvyagintsev.
"Minotaur" revolves around wealthy businessman Gleb (Dmitrij Mazurov) and his unfaithful trophy wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) who both live a comfortable life in total political apathy. When Putin's mobilization order comes, Gleb is forced to sacrifice his morals to survive in the system by delivering new recruits to the front's bloody meat grinders.
- As a Russian director, I couldn't resist making a film about this. For me and my co-author, it was never a matter of courage – we just knew we had to. It's not just about criticizing power, but also about depicting how ordinary people gradually lose their moral compass and become complicit in a destructive system, he says.
It is not the first time that Andrey Zvyagintsev uses mythological or religious motifs to give his films a greater resonance. Already in the successful debut "The Return" there were biblical echoes, among other things in an image that alluded to the Renaissance painter Mantegna's famous painting "The Dead Christ".
In "Leviathan", the sea monster from the book of Job had to give weight to a caustic criticism of the system. And in "Minotaur" he thus turns to the Greek myth of the monster in the labyrinth, but also to the story's sacrificial motif: the young innocent lives that are regularly sacrificed to maintain order.
- The mythological basis became an obvious parallel to how innocent people are sacrificed in the senseless slaughter in Ukraine. During my time as an actor, I learned to see a play as more than just a text. I always look for its roots, its matrix - and there are almost always archetypes or mythology to be found, says Andrey Zvjagintsev.
Even though "Minotaur" is a French production, it was absolutely crucial for him to make the film in his native language, in a Russian context. However, due to the political situation in the home country, the film had to be shot in Riga, whose old Soviet environments provided the right foundation for the story.
He has no illusions that a single film can be a quick fix to change public opinion in Russia. On the other hand, he believes in the long-term power and deep impact of art - in contrast to the crude and vulgar simplifications of propaganda.
- "Minotaur" is not really about making a political or propagandistic statement, but about talking about the innocent people who are thrown into and sacrificed in hell. We felt a duty to speak about them with empathy and compassion, not from a distance, says Zvjagintsev.
When he received the Jury's grand prize during the spring Cannes festival, he turned directly to Putin: "Stop this bloodbath. The whole world is waiting for it.". The reaction was not long in coming. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied that the director "does not have the right to comment" on the matter. Zvyagintsev immediately retorted: "A hundred million Russian citizens have no such right today either."
In September, Zvjagintsev was labeled a "foreign agent", along with many other artists and intellectuals whom the Kremlin deems so inconvenient that they should be silenced. He has not wanted to comment on his newly acquired international agent status, but notes that he is now in a sort of existential middle ground: he doesn't really feel at home anywhere, neither in today's Russia nor in his French exile. At the same time, the near-death experience has changed his outlook on life – both as a person and as an artist.
- If you have been lucky enough to return to life, you have to start acting, live faster and more wholeheartedly. I've become braver, learned not to put things off and no longer have time to wait for good producers who circle around a project for years. Now it's "Should we work or not?" which applies.
"Minotaur" will be shown at the Stockholm Film Festival on November 14, 18 and 20.
