As with The Return, The Banishment and Elena, Zvyagintsev exhibits an extraordinary eye for the class-inflected details of intimate family life, the personal and the political perfectly intertwined, albeit to rather more forthright purpose here than elsewhere in his back catalogue.
Teachers are rather more forthright.
His Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, was rather more forthright.
While most companies aren't so candid about future unreleased products, LG's regional execs have a history of being rather more forthright than most, so it's likely this is a genuine peek behind the curtain.
There's a lot of other attitudes caught up in that – an expectation for men to be the family breadwinner, pervasive beliefs of male supremacy, unshared labor at home, employer assumptions involving having and raising children, social preferences for women as passive objects rather than forthright subjects.
It's not a matter of affected dynamics — holding back in whispers rather than playing forthright.
Some may find it short on poetry, however, above all in the central Romanze, which is forthright rather than introverted.
But, rather oddly, his forthright, thoughtful directorial personality is at odds with his acting one: for all his films' freakish elements, this is a man whose preference is for polished, well-made dramas, with clear emotional through-lines and sobbing catharsis.
Interestingly, there is a certain flatness to the painting that does not make Michelle Obama prettier than she is, but rather conveys her forthright appeal.
