MUBI has finally dated Andrey Zvyagintsev's "Minotaur" and dropped the first U.S. trailer. The film opens in select North American theaters on November 20.
I caught it at Cannes and wrote at the time that Zvyagintsev had delivered another great film. The icy precision and hypnotic force of his filmmaking remain undeniable. This is a comeback in the fullest sense, a decade away from directing after severe illness and political exile, and what he comes back with is a pitch-black noir set in provincial Russia during the early months of the war in Ukraine.
Gleb is a wealthy local businessman whose personal life and moral compass unravel when he starts to suspect Galina is cheating on him. Mikhail Krichman is back behind the camera, the Galperine brothers on score. The band is back together.
The part that still fascinates me is that Zvyagintsev has openly admitted "Minotaur" is a remake of Claude Chabrol's "The Unfaithful Wife" — the same source Adrian Lyne turned into 2002's "Unfaithful," which got Diane Lane an Oscar nomination. Somehow, and entirely due to Zvyagintsev's command behind the camera, a story this familiar still plays as utterly gripping. He's a very different animal from Chabrol or Lyne. Where they found heat, he strips everything down to silence and spiritual exhaustion.
"Minotaur" won the Grand Prix at Cannes. A two-time Oscar nominee who already has the Golden Lion for "The Return," Best Screenplay at Cannes for "Leviathan," and the Jury Prize in 2017 for "Loveless," Zvyagintsev now heads into awards season with MUBI behind him.
"Minotaur," due to its production partnerships, could technically have been submitted by four different countries for the international Oscar: Russia, Latvia, Germany, or France. Obviously, Russia is banned and wouldn't have submitted this scathing indictment of Putin. Germany selected Sandra Wollner's "Everytime," while Latvia, a minority co-producer, chose "Ulya."
This might very well end up being France's official submission for Best International Feature Film. Whether the Academy's international branch wants to hand a nomination to a Russian-language film made by an exile, about the war, in this particular political moment, is the question. My hunch is they do.
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