WATCH PARTY: Leviathan (2014) dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev @ Mary Pretlow Library

We'll be in the big room, Meeting Room 1, to the right of the entrance in Mary Pretlow Library.

RUNTIME: 141 minutes

SYNOPSIS: Kolya (AlexeÏ Serebriakov) lives in a small fishing town near the stunning Barents Sea in Northern Russia. He owns an auto-repair shop that stands right next to the house where he lives with his young wife Lilya (Elena Liadova) and his son Roma (SergueÏ Pokhodaev) from a previous marriage. The town's corrupt mayor Vadim Shelevyat (Roman Madianov) is determined to take away his business, his house, as well as his land. First the Mayor tries buying off Kolya, but Kolya unflinchingly fights as hard as he can so as not to lose everything he owns including the beauty that has surrounded him from the day he was born. Facing resistance, the mayor starts being more aggressive.....

BLURBS:
"Why should you suffer through a 140-minute Russian film that is basically a contemporary remake of The Book of Job? Because it’s a stupendous piece of work, that’s why, and because it represents the kind of challenging, intimate filmmaking that transcends language and borders." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"The rhythms of the water, along with the soft sapphire light and Mr. Zvyagintsev’s filmmaking — every image is immaculately framed, and every camera move conveys the deliberate thought behind it — pull you in with seemingly irresistible power." - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"One of the most reliably dazzling talents in world cinema. Nobody does unease like Zvyagintsev: you’d have to go back to Kubrick, then Hitchcock, to find a film-maker so willing to toy with his audience." - Tara Brady, The Irish Times