Any Russian director should expect to be compared with Tarkovsky, not least one who works, as Andrey Zvyagintsev does, with abundant natural imagery – desolate trees, expanses of icy water. But his five films to date, including the 2003 debut, The Return, and the harrowing new drama, Loveless, really do approach the grandeur and urgency, both dramatic and spiritual, that we associate with the master. Zvyagintsev tends to harness his philosophical points to commentary about modern Russia – and the world in general – and it should not be interpreted as a slight on either film-maker that the description of him as “Tarkovsky with a plot” has now entered circulation.
We meet in the private room of a London members’ club. Across the table is his producer, Alexander Rodnyansky, who is bulky and bear-like where Zvyagintsev is slight, and emphatic in his statements where the director is quietly insistent. Zvyagintsev speaks through an interpreter. Every now and then, the producer quibbles over a word choice (was that “portal” or “gateway”?) and the interpreter concedes defeat. Each shot, edit and camera movement in Zvyagintsev’s films is precisely weighted, so why should a conversation be any different?
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