Cannes Review: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur Is an Intriguingly Imbalanced Drama

      The final scene in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless features a woman in a tracksuit emblazoned with the word “RUSSIA” as she jogs on a treadmill—a poignant symbol of a nation heading nowhere. Released in 2017, the film falls in between the onset of the war in Donbas and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; its narrative echoes the horrors conveyed through news reports, illustrating a nuclear family disintegrating after their only child goes missing. In Minotaur, people also keep disappearing. Set in September 2022, those fortunate enough not to be sent to the frontlines are hastily seeking refuge at the nearest border to evade conscription and start anew away from home. This theme is not new for Zvyagintsev; his works consistently navigate between personal and broader societal issues, showcasing domestic strife against the grim backdrop of life under the oppressive Putin regime. His first feature co-written with Simon Lyashenko (instead of his usual collaborator Oleg Negin) continues these long-standing preoccupations, even though the shift from personal to broader horrors feels more jarring than before.

      Minotaur is loosely inspired by Claude Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife, which is described as a “psycho-sexual study in murder,” where a husband discovers his wife's infidelity and decides to kill her lover. Troubled marriages are central to Zvyagintsev’s body of work, and Gleb’s (Dmitriy Mazurov) relationship with Galina (Iris Lebedeva) is nearly as lifeless as the ones in his previous films. Similar to the strained couples in Loveless and Leviathan, their teenage son, Seryozha (Boris Kudrin), is likely the only reason they remain together. Living in a large waterfront villa, they embody a mix of wealth and misery, with their massive floor-to-ceiling windows failing to lift the suffocating gloom that lingers in their lives. Gleb is consumed by his profession, while Galina engages in an affair with a 33-year-old photographer. Yet their faded romance exists within the shadow of a much larger tragedy.

      As the CEO of a major shipping company that significantly contributes to the city’s economy and employment—with connections to the mayor—Gleb is grappling with a wave of resignations as staff flee Russia to dodge conscription. With Putin’s “Special Military Operation” in full effect, localities must fulfill government recruitment quotas, and Gleb is tasked with selecting fourteen employees to serve as sacrifices for the nation. Zvyagintsev may have altered his co-writer but retained his cinematographer, and in a particularly chilling moment, Mikhail Krichman’s camera sweeps around a meeting room where the men Gleb has chosen quietly listen to his instructions. They’ve been ostensibly hired to drive new trucks, but as the film unfolds, Zvyagintsev revisits the lot where they sit alongside countless other "volunteers" while an army spokesperson assures them they’re all fighting “to remain human.”

      The film reaches its most poignant moments when it expands its focus, sidelining the couple to highlight the plight of those around them—the civilians ensnared in a war they never sought. In contrast to Loveless and Leviathan, which often employed proxies to critique the Putin regime—such as corrupt officials or deceitful clergy—scenes like these solidify Minotaur as Zvyagintsev’s most fervent condemnation yet. After relocating to Paris during the summer of 2022, and similar to Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, this latest work was filmed entirely in Latvia and can be interpreted as an exiled son’s scathing rebuke to a homeland that feels more distant with each passing day.

      However, experiencing the film creates an uneven effect. One can’t shake the feeling that the backdrop of Minotaur is ultimately more compelling than its fictional storyline. Despite the crucial moment of violence that disrupts the couple's lives, which Zvyagintsev stages in a wordless scene balancing humor and horror, the marital drama, punctuated by familiar conflicts (“I don’t want to endure,” Galina retorts, “I want to live”) feels strangely muted. This can partly be attributed to the film’s setting. Zvyagintsev has a knack for transforming his locations into reflections of his characters’ inner lives; while watching Leviathan—arguably his crowning achievement—it’s not the marriage narrative that lingers, but how he intertwines it with the vast, desolate coastal landscapes that mirror the psychological trauma of their inhabitants.

      Minotaur is primarily an urban narrative, and the indoor spaces showcased by Krichman lack a similar metaphysical link with their occupants. (Moreover, they are notably less striking: the film's palette excessively leans toward blues, bordering on dreary and monotonous.) Additionally,