This movie has striking landscapes but presents a quite negative view of Russian society today under Putin, with fractured family life, rampant alcoholism, a corrupt Church in cahoots with a corrupt bureaucracy, a quite hopeless outlook overall. At first I suspected US-managed state propaganda was behind it, with some evil genius like Dick Cheney pulling the strings to manipulate opinion. But, at least according to Zvyagintsev’s Wikipedia article, it was the director’s own voice throughout. (I’m not sure I believe this, though.)