Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Elena Blu-ray Movie Review

Quiet Desperation

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 18, 2015

It seems that a person only appears in his true colors, when someone treads on his toes. — Andrey Zvyagintsev

Elena is the third film by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, who is best known for his striking 2003 debut, The Return (not yet available on Blu-ray), and his Oscar-nominated fourth feature from 2014, Leviathan. The film began as part of an ambitious project by a British producer to assemble four directors, each of whom would make a different film on the subject of apocalypse. The project itself went nowhere, but Zvyagintsev and co-writer Oleg Negin devised a story that appealed to both of them.

At first glance, Elena doesn't appear "apocalyptic" in any obvious sense of the word. It's an intimate drama that plays out over a few weeks with a handful of characters, minimal dialogue, no special effects and a decidedly realistic, even banal, setting. Although Zvyagintsev has called the film "a fast, intense ride", that is only true in the film's later portion. For the first hour, Elena proceeds at a stately, deliberate pace requiring—no, insisting—that viewers pay strict attention and focus on the tiniest details. Indeed, the director notes with amusement, in the interview included on this disc, that he has heard many complaints about the film's opening shot, which lasts just over a minute, during which nothing seems to be happening. In fact, things are happening, but most importantly the film is setting the rules for what's to follow. It is telling the audience that this is a story where the world may change in an instant as brief, or a motion as small, as the flutter of a bird's wings.

Elena (Nadezhda Markina) and Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov) are an older married couple, who live in Vladimir's spacious and graciously appointed apartment in a wealthy district of Moscow. Elena maintains both the apartment and Vladimir in tidy perfection. It is the second marriage for both of them, and both have an adult child from their first marriages. Vladimir is estranged from his daughter, Katerina or "Katya" (Elena Lyadova), whom he calls "selfish" and a "hedonist".

Elena, by contrast, routinely visits her son, Sergey (Aleksey Rozin), who lives with his wife, Tatyana (Evgeniya Konushkina), and Elena's two grandchildren in public housing in a tattered part of town sprayed with graffiti. Sergey has no job and shows no inclination to find one. Elena dotes on her infant grandson, but the older one, a teenager named Sasha (Igor Ogurtsov), can barely be bothered to say hello to his grandmother. Elena supports the entire family on her pension, which she does not need, because Vladimir takes care of her. Today, however, Sergey tells his mother that the family requires a substantial sum to guarantee a place for Sasha in college. Can she get it from Vladimir?

The discussions between husband and wife over Sergey's request have the ring of a debate that has been replayed many times. Both sides have legitimate arguments, as Vladimir insists that Sergey should take responsibility for supporting his family, and Elena notes that Vladimir is perfectly willing to support his own daughter's idleness. Several key events interrupt the discussion, but when it resumes, Vladimir has grown firm in his resistance—and here is where Elena turns "apocalyptic", in the sense that the film watches a cataclysm unfold within the confines of a single extended family, a kind of "apocalypse in microcosm", where the elemental clash of good and evil plays out through the actions of ordinary individuals.

It is tempting to view Elena as a critique of fractures in post-Soviet society, and many Western reviewers took such an approach when the film was released here theatrically. But Zvyagintsev's precise balance of opposing forces—of wealth vs. poverty, old vs. young, male vs. female, ties of blood vs. bonds of marriage—transcends time and place. Similar conflicts can be found throughout classic drama and literature (they were a favorite of Dickens), but Elena is so effective precisely because it doesn't try to make any grand statements. Zvyagintsev's style is detached and observational. His camera seems to be catching these clashes as they come to a head, and he has even gone so far as to say that any of the characters can be regarded as the "main" one, depending on the viewer's disposition (or, in the director's phrase, "whose logic is closest to us").

This isn't to suggest that Elena lacks a visual design. The film may leave room for the viewer to inhabit multiple perspectives, but it carves out those perspectives with care. Some oppositions are established by contrast, e.g., the obvious disparity between Vladimir's elegant residence and neighborhood and the squalid industrial housing—next to a nuclear power plant—occupied by Sergei's family. Other oppositions are established by changes in context, of which the most notable example is the title character. The subtly expressive face of actress Nadezhda Markina as Elena remains a steady and reliable presence throughout the film, but without giving anything away, one can say that the Elena we meet at the opening of the film is very different from the one we see at the conclusion. Indeed, one of the many nagging questions with which Zvyagintsev leaves us is whether it really is the person who has changed or merely the circumstances to which she has been forced to adapt.

Elena Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Elena was shot on film by Mikhail Krichman, who has been the cinematographer on all of Zvyagintsev's films. Post-production was completed at 2K on a digital intermediate, from which Zeitgeist's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced by a direct digital path. The Blu-ray image is superb, with clarity, sharpness and detail that could easily be mistaken for first-rate digital photography. I spotted only one instance of aliasing (on the grille work of a parked car) as a telltale sign of the limitations of 2K processing. Otherwise, the image aptly serves the film's technique of holding shots for long intervals while the viewer is invited to study every element in the frame.

The color palette for Vladimir's apartment is dominated by deep browns and cool blues; it's a controlled environment where everything has been designed and arranged. The apartment of Sergei's family, by contrast, is a hodgepodge of colors, none of them bright or fresh; it's a random jumble, much like the yard where Elena catches the train to visit her family. The church that Elena visits to light a candle is ornate and richly appointed, and several other key locations that it is better for the reader not to know about in advance have distinctive color schemes appropriate to their functions.

Zeitgeist has used all of a BD-50 for the film and extras, yielding an average bitrate for the film of 32.05 Mbps. Given the number of static shots in the film, Elena could probably manage with less, but in any case, the compression has been carefully done, and no artifacts appeared.

Elena Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Elena's 5.1 soundtrack has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, and it is spare but impressive. The mix uses silence just as effectively as sound, and the silence may be broken by an event off-camera, as happens during the opening shot when a crow caws to the left and rear before flapping into view. Trains and autos pass to left and right, and TVs are a constant presence, whether on- or off-camera, usually playing game shows or what sounds like a Russian version of reality TV. A visit to Vladimir's fitness club provides the sounds of workout machines and a swimming pool. Near the end, a complex outdoor scene involving multiple extras has elaborate sound editing that cannot be described without spoilers.

I do not speak Russian, but I presume the dialogue is clearly rendered. A key element to the soundtrack is the urgent underscore by Philip Glass, which, in a wise decision, has been used to intensify only a few key scenes, so that it retains its impact. (Glass's scores are less effective when overused.)

Elena Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Zeitgeist's Blu-ray of Elena includes the extras contained on the Region B-locked disc released by New Wave in February 2013 and adds several new ones. The new extras are marked with an asterisk below.

• *The Making of Elena (1080p; 1.78:1; 40:26): This documentary consists of four segments. In the first, Zvyagintsev and co-writer Oleg Negin polish a scene. In the second, Zvyagintsev works with his cast and crew to rehearse, then shoot, a complicated sequence set outdoors near the film's end. In the third, director and cast rehearse the film's final scene. In the fourth, the director works on the film's opening, which includes coordination with a bird wrangler on a soundstage where the exterior of Vladimir's apartment has been recreated. In Russian with English subtitles.



• Interview with Director Andrey Zvyagintsev (1080p; 1.78:1; 34:06): The director/co-writer speaks in detail about his approach to writing scripts in general and the development of the script for Elena in particular. He explains why specific scenes came to be added and discusses the film's overall subject (he makes a point of saying that he hates the word "theme").



• *Making the Poster Screenprint (1080i; 1.78:1; 2:39): Essentially an ad for the limited edition screenprint by Sam's Myth.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 1:42): In Russian with English subtitles.



• *Booklet: The enclosed booklet contains a director's statement, an interview with Zvyagintsev (which is an excerpt from a book about the film), a chapter listing for the disc, and film and disc credits.

Elena Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Zvyagintsev has spoken of the need to re-examine "the myth insisting that evil will be punished without fail". He urges instead that we consider the modern world as one "where evil can turn up in your house with the everyday banality of a plumber". While it may be tempting to view such cynicism as a unique product of post-Soviet Russia, the sheer ordinariness of the conflicts in Elena undercut such an easy interpretation. One does not need to go to Moscow to find elderly men who remarry when their children are grown and find their property subject to a tug of war between relations, with the attendant drama and emotion. Elena may be an extreme case, but the conflicts are typical. Evil may be just a matter of degree. Highly recommended.