– CANNES 2026: Andrey Zvyagintsev directs, with impressive and meticulous mastery, a grim fable about relationships, the limits of freedom and the Russian special military operation in Ukraine
“What do you want, then? – To live.” Against the backdrop of a family photograph that tugs at the heartstrings, and a marriage in crisis that sparks both a painful awakening and a series of instinctive attempts to cope with its devastating consequences, the brilliant exiled Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev makes his long-awaited return with Minotaur. The film premiered in competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, nine years after his previous feature, Loveless which won the Jury Prize on the Croisette – he also received the Best Screenplay Award in 2014 for Leviathan. In undertaking a loose adaptation of Claude Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife, however, Zvyagintsev sets his sights on something far more ambitious than simply exposing — though he does so with remarkable precision — the mechanics of a marriage quietly collapsing under the weight of suspicion, investigation, betrayal and the struggle to decide what comes next. Zvyagintsev constructs – with measured control, piercing subtlety and extraordinary skill – a story that begins as an intimate, near-thriller exploration of marital breakdown gradually expanding into a reflection of Russia in 2022, at the outset of the so-called “special operation” in Ukraine that would lead to the war as we now know it.
“Nothing will ever be the same again; we have to adapt.” A major double upheaval disrupts the more than comfortable life of businessman Gleb (Dmitriy Mazourov), a member of the inner circle of the local oligarchy (in an unnamed provincial town). On the one hand, he begins to suspect his wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) of cheating on him and embarks on a discreet investigation to try to get to the bottom of things and find out more. On the other hand, there is a general atmosphere of panic following the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine: his employees, like so many others, are wondering whether to flee abroad and the authorities are urgently demanding a list of 14 names from him as part of the partial mobilisation. But even under pressure at the intersection of his private and public life, in a situation completely beyond his control, Gleb is used to getting straight to the point: “You have to act intelligently; it’s a mistake to make the first move. You have to instil fear, grab them sharply, and threaten them eye to eye.” A course of action that will have terrible repercussions…
“We’re telling you everything you need to know. ” By structuring his screenplay (with Simon Liachenko) like a game of blind man’s buff, Andrei Zvyagintsev displays formidable skill, gradually bringing the political backdrop (the film’s true subject) to the fore amidst the tribulations of the deceived husband (whose boot will successively contain a bicycle, groceries and a corpse wrapped in a carpet). Moving from level to level with increasing intensity, the plot sketches a striking metaphor for moral decline, the culture of money, power, the instinct to possess what one believes to be one’s territory and which yearns for freedom (his wife and, by extension, Ukraine), crime and impunity. A bottomless pit from which the filmmaker distils increasingly overt resonances (the letter Z, propaganda posters, a convoy of tanks, an amputee, soldiers, a recruitment centre and a delirious patriotic speech with a priest in support) without ever letting go of the taut and detailed thread of the symbolic face-off between the husband and his wife. All this is filmed against a gripping backdrop of twilight gloom, with a multitude of undertones organically and subtly woven into the unfolding of a stark and masterfully controlled narrative, in which the anti-heroes put their own interests before all else in order to preserve their lofty status and their dreams of eternity, sending the people to their deaths without a shred of remorse. Minotaur illustrates this searing tableau to perfection and with relentless precision.
Minotaur was produced by French companies MK Productions and CG Cinema with Forma Pro Films (Latvia) and Razor Film (Germany), and co-produced by Arte France Cinéma. mk2 Films handles international sales.
(Translated from French)
