Loveless review – a lost boy in a toxic world

A child’s disappearance is the catalyst for a savage indictment of family breakdown in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s mesmerising, Oscar-nominated filmThere is an early image in Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Oscar-nominated Loveless that has haunted me since I first saw the film.

A couple in the throes of a messy separation are arguing bitterly about which of them will have to care for their young son, an onerous burden neither wishes to shoulder.

As they argue, a door is pulled shut and the camera spies the child, unseen by his parents, standing in the shadows, a white vest accentuating his fragile frame, his face contorted in a silent scream of unloved anguish.It’s a horrifying vision – a snapshot of desolation and despair that shrieks back to the days of pre-sound cinema, to the pure poetry of visual storytelling.

It is also emblematic of a film that, with chilly precision,

Read full article


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *