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Elena (2011 film)

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Director
  
Andrey Zvyagintsev

Initial DVD release
  
October 30, 2012 (USA)

Duration
  

Language
  
Russian

7.2/10
IMDb

Genre
  
Drama

Music director
  
Philip Glass

Country
  
Russia

Elena (2011 film) movie poster

Release date
  
21 May 2011 (2011-05-21) (Cannes) 29 September 2011 (2011-09-29) (Russia)

Writer
  
Andrey Zvyagintsev (screenplay), Oleg Negin (screenplay)

Initial release
  
September 29, 2011 (Russia)

Cast
  
Nadezhda Markina
(Elena),
Aleksey Rozin
(Sergey),
Andrey Smirnov
(Vladimir),
Elena Lyadova
(Katerina)

Similar movies
  
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Elena official trailer 1 2011 russian movie hd


Elena (Russian: Елена) is a 2011 Russian drama film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize.

Contents

Elena (2011 film) movie scenes

Elena trailer


Plot

Elena (2011 film) movie scenes

The film depicts the social and cultural distance between the inhabitants of an exclusive apartment in downtown Moscow and a crumbling khrushchevka in Moscow's industrial suburb. Elena is a woman with a proletarian background who connects these disparate worlds. She met Vladimir, an elderly business tycoon, in a hospital when she was his nurse. Their alliance has been described by a critic as "a morganatic marriage nearly a century after the October Revolution".

Elena (2011 film) movie scenes

Elena's son from a previous marriage is poor and wants money from Vladimir to send his 17-year-old son to university, keeping him out of the compulsory military service. Vladimir makes it clear that he is not going to subsidize Elena's relatives, and informs her that he plans to make a will leaving his wealth to his only daughter from an earlier marriage. Elena poisons him so that he dies intestate and she inherits half his estate.

Reviews

Elena (2011 film) movie scenes

Jim Hoberman referred to Elena as "the most vivid evocation... of Moscow’s contemporary society". According to Hoberman, "Zvyagintsev has mapped out a world ruled by ingratitude and the absence of justice". Critic Stephen Holden of The New York Times was impressed by Zvyagintsev's "vision of Moscow as a jungle teeming with predatory wildlife" suggesting that "in this quasi-feudal social environment, avarice and blood ties trump all other values". The Village Voice acclaimed Zvyagintsev's "scalpel-like precision dissecting class that recalls Claude Chabrol". "Shoot this film in black and white and cast Barbara Stanwyck as Elena, and you'd have a 1940s classic", Roger Ebert observes.

Awards

  • Special Jury Prize of the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival
  • Golden Eagle Award for Best Film
  • Nika Award for Best Actress
  • 2011 Russian Guild of Film Critics Awards – Best Film, Best Director (Andrey Zvyagintsev), Best Female Supporting Actor (Elena Lyadova).
  • Nadezhda Markina was also nominated for the Best Performance by an Actress at the European Film Awards and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

    Elena official hd trailer


    References

    Elena (2011 film) Wikipedia
    Elena (2011 film) IMDb Elena (2011 film) themoviedb.org