Сергей Медведев - The Return of the Russian Leviathan

It is crucially important that the time of the action is clearly shown in the film. It begins in December 2012, the eve of the passing of the Dima Yakovlev Law, otherwise known as ‘the scoundrels’ law’, which doomed dozens of sick Russian orphans who were waiting to be adopted by foreigners to a miserable life, worsening illness and, in some cases, death. It is exactly from this moment, when the ruling class was bound by the blood of the children, that the definitive moral decline of the state set in, accompanied as it was by the overwhelming indifference of the population. The film ends in 2015, ‘the year of normalization’, when the shock of Crimea and the shooting down of MH17 had passed, when Russia had grown used to the sanctions regime and understood that this new relationship between the state and society was serious and in for the long run. Zvyagintsev makes films about the family, but the action takes place in conditions of an unprecedented moral decline. And the basic problem here is not Putin and Kiselyov; it’s not in the Kremlin and the Donbass; and it’s not even corruption and theft: these are all merely symptoms of the disease. The director addresses the disease itself – it is society, mired in lies, cynicism and a lack of trust, having lost all hope for the future and for change; and Putin and Kiselyov simply cast this lie in the form of politics and the mass media, thus exporting it to the whole world.

It is certainly not a coincidence that in 2016 in the Russian public space the conversation turned to ethics: here we had the flash mob, ‘I’m not afraid to speak out’ (see above, ‘Breaking “The Silence of the Lambs”’), in which women spoke about the sexual harassment they have had to put with; about domestic violence and torture in Russian prisons; and about historic memory and the responsibility of Stalin’s executioners. The reflective part of society has begun to be aware of the moral dead-end in which we all find ourselves, and the conspiracy of silence that has surrounded the problems of violence, humiliation and trauma. These are exactly the questions that Zvyagintsev has been raising for many years, including the problem of not speaking out and the break in communication. In conditions where there is no state with a social policy, no church that is socially responsible or close to the people, no culture of public dialogue on questions of the family, childhood, or relations between the sexes, Zvyagintsev’s films present us with the very fundamental moral questions about which we prefer to remain silent – or leave them at the mercy of cynical populists like deputies Vitaly Milonov and Elena Mizulina, official defenders of ‘traditional values’. Andrei Zvyagintsev is now the main person in Russia raising the question of values – real values, not those dreamt up by propaganda – but the state will never acknowledge him in this role, preferring to limit the distribution of his films and defaming him in the press, as happened with his previous film, Leviathan , which they accused of being Russophobic.

One of the fleeting images in Loveless is signal tape. Right at the start of the film, the boy finds some in the forest. He ties it to a stick and throws it at a tree. The years pass, new children are born, but the tape remains there. It is as if Zvyagintsev has wrapped our society in this tape, marking the perimeter of the contours of the humanitarian catastrophe and the moral quagmire into which we have plunged. Like Pushkin’s ‘bloody boy’ in Boris Godunov , his lost child speaks about the fundamental crime lying at the base of our silent well-being, about the things we are trying unsuccessfully to forget. This is why this film is so ruthless, so discomforting – and such essential viewing.

The season of tolerance and humanity opened in Russia: as its representative at the finals of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev, Russia chose Yulia Samoilova, a singer in a wheelchair. Shortly before the competition, it had seemed as if Russia would boycott it, given that it was taking place in the capital of a country with which Russia is de facto at war. But suddenly, in a single magical moment, everything changed: with one generous gesture Russia was returning to the bosom of this international festival, rising above the military conflict, and announcing that it was adhering to global standards of tolerance and equal opportunities.

And everything would have been wonderful in this Hollywood-like story, demonstrating that music and the will to live can triumph over hatred and division – except that the shadow of the Kremlin propaganda machine could be seen sticking out from underneath this great humanitarian subject. The problem was that in July 2015 Yulia had performed in Crimea after it was annexed by Russia, and had travelled there without the permission of the Ukrainian authorities. Thus, Ukraine was presented with a cynical choice by Russia: either allow a singer who had broken the law in Ukraine to take part in the competition, thus violating its own principles and norms; or refuse her entry, thus opening itself up to a guaranteed artillery barrage of Russian propaganda and the judgement of the international community. The Ukrainian musician and actor, Anton Mukharsky, even proposed greeting Samoilova at the airport in Kiev accompanied by hundreds of Ukrainian Army soldiers who are now permanently disabled as a result of the battles in the Donbass.

In the end, the Ukrainian Security Service did ban Samoilova from entering Ukraine for three years, and Russia was not represented at Eurovision 2017; but, at the same time, it made Ukraine look like a miserable host that had politicized the song contest. This was a masterful propaganda stroke from Moscow’s point of view, which had been prepared to send its singer deep into the rear of the enemy as a diversionary tactic in its hybrid war against Ukraine and the West.

However, the main problem with nominating Yulia Samoilova to take part in Eurovision 2017 was that Russia did not have the moral right to send someone in a wheelchair from a country that does not provide its disabled people with equal rights for treatment, mobility or work opportunities. There are huge problems with medication for the disabled and with the provision of ramps in housing blocks. As a result, the vast majority of disabled people are confined to their apartments. It is impossible to live on the miserly disability benefits provided, or to look after a disabled child, even in the poorest Russian regions. As has always been the case, Russia has a shortage of quality protheses, wheelchairs and spare parts for them; furthermore, virtually none of these items is produced in Russia itself. Yulia, who suffers from spinal amyotrophy (an inherited disorder, exacerbated following a polio vaccination as a child), is hoping to go to Finland for an operation, and is collecting money for this via crowdfunding. As they joked bitterly on Twitter: ‘It’s only in Russia that a disabled person could go to Eurovision, but can’t go to the shop next door.’

Our Paralympic sport is also just such a Potemkin Village, if not more so: first and foremost, it is a shop window for national pride, and only after that is it a humanitarian project. When there is no infrastructure, nor any tradition of people with restricted abilities taking part in sport (it would be a great rarity in Russia for a blind runner or skier to take part in a mass marathon accompanied by a specially trained sportsman), all that exists is a state system for choosing people with disabilities to take part in top-level sports. They identify gifted people with restricted abilities – for example, former sportspeople who have been in a car accident – and suggest to them a professional career that would be the envy of any disabled Russian person: everything is paid for by the state, they travel abroad and, if they are victorious, there are generous prizes. Paralympic sportspeople are a part of the elite Russian sporting machine, and huge financial and administrative resources are thrown at their success; but it’s no coincidence (judging by the unprecedented sanctions imposed by the International Paralympic Committee) that they were drawn into the massive doping programme. And, as dependent people, they couldn’t refuse. Then, when they were caught out, the moralizing machinery of state propaganda went into overdrive, blaring out about the ‘unheard-of cynicism’ of the international sporting organizations, which had decided ‘to take revenge on Russia’ and ‘make an example of disabled sportsmen’.