Product Details

• Actors: Nadezhda Markina, Andrey Smirnov, Elena Lyadova
• Directors: Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Russian
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Zeitgeist Films
• DVD Release Date: October 30, 2012
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B008MZTKFG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,760 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Winner of Cannes Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize, Elena is a gripping, modern twist on the classic noir thriller. Sixty-ish spouses Vladimir and Elena (award winner Nadezhda Markina) uneasily share his palatial Moscow apartment he s a still-virile, wealthy businessman; she s his dowdy former nurse who has clearly married up. Estranged from his own wild-child daughter, Vladimir openly despises his wife s freeloading son and family. But when a sudden illness and an unexpected reunion threaten the dutiful housewife s potential inheritance, she must hatch a desperate plan... Masterfully crafted by award-winning Russian filmmaker Andrei Zvyagintsev (Golden Globe nominee The Return) and featuring evocative, Hitchcockian music by Philip Glass, Elena is a subtly stylish exploration of crime, punishment and human nature.

DVD Special Features include:

Gorgeous HD master, enhanced for widescreen viewing

Optional English subtitles

30-minute interview with director Andrey Zvyagintsev

Making-of video on the poster screen-printing

U.S. theatrical trailer

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A bitter pill to swallow... January 21, 2013

By Andrew Ellington VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

Maybe `Elena' was just poorly marketed. I wouldn't know because I didn't personally see any advertisements and just happened to stumble onto this when I saw it on Netflix. Apparently some feel this was supposed to be some sort of a noir or a thriller. It's not. `Elena' is more than that. `Elena' is a deeply moving and complex character study that unravels around the relationship between a woman, her husband, his daughter and her son. With long brushstrokes for takes, director Andrey Zvyagintsev delivers what I imagine a Hitchcock film would look like under the direction of Michael Haneke. It is severe, but in a very subtle and observant way, allowing us to get inside Elena's head without feeling beaten over the head by her conundrum of sorts, and the finale is beautifully enriched by an almost stale aftertaste, as if the underscore the decisions of the film's centerpiece. With a brilliant score (truly haunting) and a brilliant leading lady (what Nadezhda Markina does here is remarkable), `Elena' delivers to us a rather remarkable look at the lengths one will go to in order to enrich the lives of those they love, regardless of the cost.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Domestic drama from Russia September 15, 2012

By Paul Allaer TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

"Elena" (2011 release from Russia; 109 min.) brings the story of Elena (played by Nadezhda Markina) and Vladimir, both in their sixties it appears. Married life is not quite what it seems, as Elenea appears to be equally the care-taker, maid, and do-it-all for Vladimir. Only later in the film do we learn that they met some 10 years ago when Vladimir was in the hospital and Elena was his nurse. They eventually married, and it brought economic stability for Elena as Vladimir is well off finacially. We also get to know Elena's son, Sergei, and his family, including his 17 yr old son Sasha, a do-no-good slacker of the first degree who desparately wants to go to university so as to avoid having to serve in the army but can't afford it. Sergei is not much better, essentially being supported by Elena. Last major character in the movie is Vladimir's daughter Katerina, the supposedly "wild and crazy" one (but is she really?), who rarely sees her old man anymore.

Even though the movie starts off very gently (the opening 5 min. or so, all we see is Elena awakening, making coffe and breakfast, and getting ready for the day), it doesn't take long for the tension to start building in the movie. It shouldn't come as a surprise that it's all about the benjamins, of course. Vladimir has lots of it; Sergei and his family not so much and getting more desperate by the day. I won't say more about the plot, you'll just have to see how it all plays out for yourself, but suffice it to say that you are in for quite a few surprises in the last half hour.

The movie plays out at glacial speed, and I mean that as a compliment. The character study of Elena is done beautifully, you can see Elena's despair and conflcit (between her husband and her son) in her face.... Nadezhda Markina in the title role won several acting awards last year in Europe for this performance, and rightfully so. I have no idea why this movie just now, 18 months after its premiere at the 2011 Cannes festival, found its way to the theatre here in Cincinnati, but better late than never, I suppose. This movie is obviously miles away from your standard Hollywood fare, but if you're in the mood for a top quality foreign film, you will be pleased with this one. Read more ›

4.0 out of 5 stars Harsh realities make a mockery of idealized "goodness." May 22, 2013

By Eric M. Eiserloh

Format:DVD

Elena, besides being a low-burn thriller, is an indictment of contemporary Russia where money is the only thing one can count on, and which corrupts/effects the value system completely, unless one is lucky enough and content to eke out a meager existence in servitude.

Elena starts out as fairly content, having accepted her lot in life and has been practical/lucky enough to become the nurse/wife/housemaid to a man of property and enough wealth, who treats her politely and well enough as long as his needs are met. His daughter, meanwhile has become a hedonistic cynic (and there are intimations that her mother was similar), which is more evidence that they belong to a corrupt nouveau riche, post communist, post czarist Russia emulating itself all over again, where money has replaced party members, and class system by family name, where the right to ownership has been redistributed, but continues the same class system under a different guise.

Elena's husband is not a bad guy, and it doesn't appear that he came by his wealth in grave criminal or corrupt ways, but he is highly protective of the one thing that in his mind perhaps keeps him from being in the same situation as 90 % of the population, and is willing only to indulge the flesh of his loins, and to some extent his wife, and perhaps those who support him in his position like doctors and lawyers, or people he does business with etc....

Elena is essentially a good person, who wants to be a good wife, and good Christian, but she also can't help indulging the fruit of her loins, or looking out for his interests and wellbeing (blood is thicker than matrimony, I guess), even though her son is just as hedonistic and self-centered in his own ignorant paltry way as her husbands daughter, and just as spoiled (I mean this in several senses).

The context is contemporary Russia, but first world economies are not as far away from a breakdown of "civilized" values as we would like to believe. Stretch the middle class just a little more, endure a few more terrorist attacks and we are right there.

It's a dog eat dog world, and the tenement youth gang attack on a couple of homeless living in a clearing between their high-rise project and the factory smoke stacks is not a random act of violence, but evidence of the power/anger that can be expressed by those living on the lowest rung of society against people who have no rung at all. Read more ›

4.0 out of 5 stars Would Lenin like it? April 27, 2013

By Richard C. Donovan

Format:DVD

Vladimir Lenin would have loved it. Score one for the revolutionaries, redistribute the wealth, and let the poor folk have a turn at being fat capitalist slobs with flatscreen TVs and fancy coffee makers. Well, maybe Lenin wouldn't have loved the film after all.

What a bleak look at modern Russia. I don't know what was more depressing: the slum neighborhood with the Chernnobyl-looking reactors, or the money, money, money neighborhood, replete with a private safe with more money, and the "lets catch up on all the money we couldn't have for so many years" desperation that chases money with more money, and this is about where Lenin would come in and put his foot down.

Art films are always serious. And serious is always despairing. I liked the film, I guess. The cinematography was superb. The rich guy's daughter was beautiful. The poor son's wife looked like a weary beauty described by Dostoyevsky. Elena herself was a survivor. She grew up during communism. Her parents experienced the Great Patriotic War. She had a PDR handy, burned the evidence, and she survived.