Minotaur

Gleb (Dmitriy Mazurov) is a successful company director, whose high-pressure corporate life is balanced by a picture-perfect family — including his wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) — and a luxurious dacha on the outskirts of a medium-sized town.

But when the Russian invasion of Ukraine begins, pressure mounts on employers to fill draft quotas for the notorious miasorubka (meat grinder) of relentless front-line warfare. With desperate workers fleeing to avoid conscription, Gleb finds an inventive — yet deeply sociopathic — way to secure the 14 "tributes" demanded from his company, echoing the Greek myth of the Minotaur's labyrinth.

Meanwhile at home, Gleb and Galina — mirrored in their shallowness — barely look at each other, with her gaze focussed on someone else. Upon realizing what’s happening right under his nose, Gleb snaps into action — and this time, the blood on his hands will be much harder to cover-up.

Director Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return, TIFF ’03; Leviathan, TIFF ’14; Loveless, TIFF ’17), is back in full form, reuniting with cinematographer Mikhail Krichman for his sixth feature, based on Claude Chabrol’s 1969 classic La femme infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife). When the film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, Zvyagintsev used his acceptance speech to issue a direct, personal plea to President Vladimir Putin to bring the war on Ukraine to an end.

Ultimately, Minotaur is a devastating work that cuts through the heart, bones, and fragile ethos of a nation collectively hell-bent on destruction.

DOROTA LECH

Content advisory: mature themes; violence