In his masterpiece Leviathan (1670), the 17th century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) claims that humans naturally exist in a state of war with one another because of competition, diffidence, and glory, making human life, “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes, 1651/2024, p. 103). For humans to escape this awful natural condition, they must come together and mutually agree to enter into a common-wealth, or state, wherein they surrender their rights to govern themselves and authorize a single political entity the power and authority needed to quell the inherent waring spirit through fear of punishment (Hobbes, 1651/2024, p. 141). In Leviathan (2014), director Andrey Zvyagintsev (b. 1964) rejects the premise that the authoritarian system Hobbes describes is needed to quell a beast-like human nature. For Zvyagintsev, it is authoritarian social structures themselves that corrupt humans.
Corruption is at the very core of Leviathan. The wealthy mayor of the seaside town of Pribrezhny, Vadim Shelevyat (Roman Madyanov), drives the conflict of the film by using his power and influence to undermine efforts of protagonist Nikolay Sergeyev (Aleksei Serebryakov) to stop the outright theft of his ancestral home by the city. Throughout the film, we are introduced to a cabal that involves the aforementioned mayor, a local Russian Orthodox Bishop (Valery Grishko), and many other individuals who retain some sort of position within the government or Orthodox church. After Nikolay is finally defeated, being accused for the murder of his wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova), the mayor finally has his way, demolishing Nikolay’s home and building a pristine Orthodox Church over the ruins. If anything, this experience describes perfectly the nasty life which Hobbes imagines humans living without a sovereign ruling over. But for Zvyaginstev, this nasty life persists even under the iron fist of Vladimir Putin, who’s photo hanging in the mayor’s office is a reminder of who is at the head of the Leviathan that is the Russian state. All of the necessary conditions are present for human life to flourish, according to Hobbes, yet Zvyaginstev’s reality in Leviathan is that corruption is a system problem, not a human problem. What we see with the characters in this film are that those who are most involved with the state and its structures are those who become the most competitive, violent and sadistic, demonstrating a system infected with corruption to its core.
Zvyaginstev does not present an inherent Hobbesian human experience. The moments where we see characters experiencing genuine content and satisfaction exist in moments detached from the state. Moments like the early scenes of meals shared among Nikolay, Dmitry (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), Lilya, and Romka (Sergey Pokhodaev); the gathering for Stepanych’s (Sergey Bachursky) birthday before Lilya and Dmitry are caught together; as well as the scene where Pasha (Aleksey Rozin) and Anzhela (Anna Ukolova) adopt Romka. It is only when these characters are brutally confronted by the corrupt representatives of the state apparatus that their humanity fades away, resulting in tragic endings for all.
Nikolay and Lilya exist furthest away from the corruption of the system, symbolized by the physical location of the house which is relatively far from the city infected by corruption. This distance means that their lives are uprooted most heavily when confronted by the state because they have not yet adapted any defence mechanisms as they have no experience dealing with it. Their friends Pasha and Anzhela already exist within the reaches of the state’s corruption, symbolized by their physical proximity to the city and by Pasha’s job as a traffic cop. However, because they have only entered into this system as a survival mechanism to put food on the table and they are not well connected to the state apparatus, they have been able to develop defences that help their humanity shine through even in moments of absolute darkness. Their resilience is seen most notably in the aforementioned moment when they adopt Romka. Finally, Dmitry may appear to be somewhat detached from corruption, being Nikolay’s lawyer during the proceedings after all. However, Dmitry symbolizes the pessimism experienced by those living in the centre of the state. As a lawyer hailing from Moscow, he lives at the centre of corruption, the seat of the Leviathan’s head from which it corrupts the rest of the state. Dmitry is a pawn in this process, attempting to fight back against corruption, but is unable to understand that it is baked into the system from which he has benefited through a good career and good money. In the end, when he is defeated, he returns home to the belly of the beast, leaving behind only the corruption that he himself emitted without any self-reflection about his role in keeping the state’s corrupted tendrils in tact.
However, Zvyaginstev is not selective in his criticism of authority. Given the historical context of Leviathan which came out in 2014 under Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule in Russia, Zvyaginstev should not be misinterpreted as a romantic for the USSR. Leviathan does not hark back to the only alternative to the status quo that Russians have experienced which fell 20 years prior. In fact, it is clear that Zvyaginstev is fundamentally against all arbitrary authority. We see this when Nikolay, Dmitry and Lilya go to the courthouse for the first time. As their car enters into the parking lot, a statue of Vladimir Lenin looks down on them, indicating that although the Soviet Union is long gone, its authoritarian foundations have seeped into this post-Soviet age. It is almost as if in this scene, Zvyaginstev is asking, “what has really changed?” Thus we see that Zvyaginstev is not necessarily misanthropic after all, just a little anarchistic.
Hobbes, T. (2024). Leviathan (N. Malcolm, Ed.) (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1651).