MINOTAUR

Between an increasingly distant stay-at-home wife, Galina (Iris Lebedeva), and a teenage son (Boris Kudrin) fighting his own small-scale battles at school, Gleb's isolated, many-windowed house isn't all that serene with the nagging suspicion that Galina isn't getting haircuts and going shopping while he's at work, as she claims. Tasking one of his workplace underlings to do some digging on the matter, what Gleb comes to discover weighs heavily on his mind, perhaps more so than the prospect of sending his own unsuspecting workers to die to make Putin look cool.

Zvyagintsev's latest film revisits some of the highlights from 1980s and 90s erotic thrillers and updates them in a more appropriate (and political) context. Mazurov and Lebedeva, both terrific in their roles, play the couple around whom the film's meditation on modern sexual relationships revolves, with Zvyagintsev injecting their scenes together (one involving dinner with friends is particularly revealing of the power dynamics between men and women in modern day Russia) with a psychological sophistication that complicates their upper-middle-class bliss.

To be honest, the story beats of the erotic thriller bits in Zvyagintsev's 'Minotaur' feel a little clichéd in a world where director Adrian Lyne has filmed this kind of story at least twice (namely 'Unfaithful' – also based on 'The Unfaithful Wife' as well as his snail-heavy adaption of Patricia Highsmith's 'Deep Water') and spawned countless imitators over many decades. However, the erotic scenes are less about gauzily filmed sex and more about physical intimacy, with Galina writhing naked with a young photographer in his small apartment while keeping a galaxy of distance between herself and Gleb in their isolated, architecturally designed house. The haunting soundtrack by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine and elegant cinematography of Mikhail Krichman go a long way to keeping the audience on edge throughout.

The real juice of 'Minotaur' is how Gleb deviously exploits Russia's murky alliance between big business and the military machine for his own corrupt purposes, like surveillance and disposing of any threats (both real and potential). Zvyagintsev moved from Moscow to France in 2022, where he began pre-production on an unrealised project about a Russian oligarch, 'Jupiter' (a film that was ultimately shelved after failing to gain financing). As we watch Gleb use the system as a tool to do some increasingly shady things, you get the sense that this is the side of the story that Zvyagintsev is really interested in.

Ultimately, 'Minotaur' is a somewhat predictable erotic thriller draped over an interesting, borderline satirical critique of Russian politics. It's one of Zvyagintsev's lesser films due to this unevenness, but by no means a fumble from one of Russian cinema's finest living directors.