6 Recommended Eastern European/Russian Movies: Tracing the memories of ethnic groups and war, leading up to ``The Painted Bird''

3. “Only the good are judged” (14) Russia Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev

The first names that come to mind as masters of the Soviet era are Sergei Eisenstein with Battleship Potemkin (25) and Andrei Tarkovsky with Solaris (1972), but the philosophy and visual beauty of these predecessors will be remembered in the 21st century. Andrei Zvyagintsev is one of the Russian master craftsmen who inherited the craftsmanship.

After making a spectacular debut by winning the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival for his first feature film, `` My Father Comes Back '' (2003), he has become a regular at the Cannes Film Festival since his second film. The fourth film, `` Only the Good '', won the Best Original Screenplay award at Cannes and also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The setting is a deserted provincial town on the coast of Russia. The main character, Kolya, runs a car repair shop and lives with his wife and child in a house that has been in his family for generations. Kolya summons his old friend, a lawyer, from Moscow to fight back against the greedy mayor who plans to buy the land for redevelopment.

Zvyagintsev got the idea for this work after learning about a tragic incident involving land redevelopment that occurred in the United States in 2004 (commonly known as the ``Killdozer Incident''). Afterwards, he co-wrote the screenplay with Oleg Negin on Leviathan, a giant underwater Monster that appears in the Old Testament's Book of Job , and the 17th century political scientist Hobbes's book `` Leviathan ,'' which discusses this Monster by comparing it to a state that individuals cannot resist. , has assembled a story that incorporates elements from the 19th century German novel ``Michael Koolhaas'', which depicts the fate of a merchant who stands up to the injustice of a feudal lord.

The reason why the story was set in Russia, even though the motifs were collected from events and books outside the country, was probably because it was intended to satirize the tyrannical power that torments the common people of that country. After all, on the wall behind the dark-hearted mayor sitting in his office is a portrait of Putin. Considering that this film was produced with financial support from the state, it can be said that freedom of expression, including criticism of the regime, is certainly becoming more prevalent in Russian and Eastern European films in recent years.

Tracing the filmography of Andrei Zvyagintsev: ``Loveless'' director Zvyagintsev's achievement in rebuilding the world by depicting the disintegration of a family

Next is ``On Body and Soul''