MINOTAUR

The year is 2022. Beloved business executive Gleb is in a major rut. Forced to conscript fourteen of his loyal employees to serve in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the once successful company director is mandated by mounting municipal pressure to send his staff to the front lines. Adding additional insult to injury, he grows suspicious of his own wife. Suspecting an extra-marital affair, Gleb begins to spiral into a psychosomatic maze of his own shrouded morality. As his trust in his nuclear family unit begins to disintegrate, Gleb’s insecurity and threatened masculinity culminate in an irreversible act of sporadic violence. 

After fleeing his home country, Russian dissident Andrey Zvyagintsev returns with a timely remake of Claude Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife. Minotaur recontextualises the renowned Parisian source material for our contemporary age. Immaculately crafted with impressive blocking and camera-coordination, Zvyagintsev's latest is a masterclass in impactful visual direction. Recently designated by the Kremlin as a “foreign agent” against the state, Zvyagintsev's powerful social commentary speaks to the complicity of the wealthy and their corroboration in the ongoing massacre of the Ukrainian populace. Winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Minotaur is one of the most timely and memorable slow-burn thrillers in recent memory.  - David Cuevas