Synopsis
A Gentle Creature (2017) is a film you can watch online on iFILM — and one of the most unrelenting portraits of bureaucratic Russia to reach the international arthouse circuit. Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa made it as a co-production with Germany, France and the Netherlands, shooting entirely in Russian with Vasylyna Makhovtseva in the lead role.
A woman in a small Russian town sends a parcel to her husband serving time in prison. The package is returned without explanation. She travels to find out why. Along the road and at her destination she encounters police officers, low-level officials, human rights workers, vagrants, and survivors of all kinds — each operating by their own private logic. Liya Akhedzhakova and Rosa Khairullina appear in supporting roles.
At 143 minutes, the film makes no concessions and offers no comfort. It played in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2017 and was read as a parable of a system that grinds down individuals not from cruelty but from indifference. The kind of film you watch once and carry for a while. Stream A Gentle Creature online on iFILM.
Starring
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