CineMuseFilms The Russian-made Loveless (2018)highlights the different cinematic traditions of the East and Western blocs. In simple terms, the film displays the East's understanding of creative minimalism in contrast to the West's preference for excess: 'less is more' versus 'more is never enough'. Both narratively and in cinematography, Lovelessis a searing ultra-minimalist indictment of Russian society today.We enter the story through the eyes of 12-year old Alyosha (Matvey Novikov) dawdling home from school. He is in no rush as his family life is a battleground between divorcing parents, Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin). Most separating parents fight for custody, but these are fighting againstcustody because caring for Alyosha is inconvenient for their new love interests. The 12-year old hears everything and knows he is unwanted. One day, Zhenya learns that Alyosha has missed some days of schooling. She had not noticed, thinking he was with his father while Boris thought the opposite. Police are soon notified and refer the parents to a voluntary missing persons search organisation as Russian police 'do not handle such matters'. The rest of the film follows the detailed search against a background of toxic parental squabbling and scant regard for the fate of their son.The most outstanding feature of this film is the starkly realistic way it portrays emotional shallowness. While Zhenya and Boris displayfeelings expected of parents in their situation, we sense a difference between 'genuine' and 'expected' emotion. Nothing in their words or actions earns our empathy or sympathy. They emote externally but are privately outraged over the inconvenience of the search and the impact on their divorce affairs. Despite its simple title, Loveless is a complex essay about parents incapable of loving their own child who is struggling to survive in a society that stifles love itself.Whether you see Loveless as a statement about modern Russia or a broader essay on contemporary materialism depends on how literally you read the signs. Selfish parents exist everywhere but the film's penultimate scene is unambivalent. Several years after the search, we find Boris repeating history in his loveless handling of new offspring. We see also the self-absorbed Zhenya in an expensive garden apartment with a new wealthy partner, still obsessed with keeping up appearances. She steps onto a high-tech treadmill wearing a tracksuit emblazoned with the single word 'Russia'. Not subtle, but the director's message is unmistakable: in the process of modernisation, Russia has absorbed the worst of the West.In light of Russia's political history, it should not be surprising to see a story in which the disappearance of a human being is so quickly normalised. As a movie, it is too bleak to be entertaining and too tense to be enjoyable. But it is certainly an engrossing and disturbing glimpse behind today's translucent iron curtain.

ronreed28 Is there any English speaking versions of this movie .they all seem to be either Russian or French.

Andres-Camara It's a pity, when movies like that, they could be better and they stay in less. The movie is fine. The best, for me of the nominees in its category. But that beginning of several minutes without telling anything, landscapes and landscapes and not having taken more advantage of the child and a few moments, stops the film, make that being a movie that is good, do not get where you should have arrived.I've heard it many times and I'm sure that all that much also, that plane of the crying child is great. But it is also very well rolled. Not only has the child been crying, but also putting the mother in a part of the house to use to choreograph the child, following her with the camera. It is that it is very well thought out and realized. And seeing the boy with that face is brutal.It has a great picture. It can not be more frigid. Like the movie itself. It makes you cold. Sometimes it's too dark but great. It gets you not only in history, but also in that environment and civilization.The actors are great almost always. There is a moment that has disappointed me. When we see the father crying sitting and can not see his face, that scene, the actors fall, I do not know if the actor did not know how to do it or if the director has not been able to shoot it, but see an actor that is leaving the soul and record him without seeing him, it is a pity.There is too much sex in the movie. He does not paint anything and the sex scenes extend a lot. The director does not finish convincing me. I could have made a much better movie. He does not know how to always keep the rhythm of the movie. The movie is something distant. He does not know how to position the camera.Anyway, it's a movie to watch it

writers_reign Apparently Chekhov believed he was wriitng comedy whilst to the rest of the world his plays were steeped in melancholia; whenever I watch a Chekhov play in a theatre no matter how excellent the translation I always feel slightly short-changed because I may be sitting, by chance, next to a native Russian speaker who has access to a good ten per cent more meaning than I via missed nuances that remain untranslateable. I feel the same way about Loveless although I enjoyed it immensely - if enjoyment is appropriate for such a barrel of sighs. It is, of course, very Chekhovian but Chekhov Unchained as it were. Chekhov with the gloves off, way beyond mere misunderstand where Chekhov thought he was writing The CHEERY Orchard but we saw The Cherry Orchard. Loveless could be subtitled Bleak Bread And Cucumber such is the level of negativity. It poses more questions than it answers; could two people who hate each other so much EVER have loved enough to marry or were there other powerful reasons for the marriage? They have, after all, both forged other relationships and both seem happy. How did two people so totally devoid of maternal/paternal feeling wind up with a child? Surely in this day and age an accidental/unwanted pregnancy could have been aborted easily enough. This is a film that demands several viewings and I for one intend to watch it again. Performances across the board are outstanding and it would be churlish to single out just one or two. Should it pick up the Best Foreign Film Oscar it would be well deserved.