It's a film, yes, so it may be prone to exaggeration, but how truthful is its portrayal of corruption within Russia? Are mayors basically local mafia bosses? Is the Russian Orthodox Church another facet of this corruption? I enjoyed the movie but at times it seemed completely unrealistic considering Russia is a developed nation.
shareI can speak for another eastern European country which is almost like this, so it's easy for me to imagine that this is pretty plausible for Russia.
shareYes and No.
It is actually more corrupt in other areas. Thanks to the fall of Communism, its sort of a hellhole nowadays.
For example, do you actually know why every car in Russia has a dashcam. It's for use in court to avoid insurance fraud: a random person just jumping into the way of the car for insurance benefits.
Religion is also very powerful both socially and politically. Just take that new anti-gay law, approved by....A PRIEST (who would have thought...)
In rural locations like this is varies. It might be very secure, but if it isn't, its likely to be completely corrupt. It's well known around the world that a small village is easier to infiltrate than, say Moscow. Moscow is actually quite good in this sense, greater social freedom, people are wealthier and happier and there is less corruption because the authorities will simply not have it.
Yup. I'd say it's even worse now.
From rus native.
It is even more corrupt, but you can dig it out. Just one example, because its recent: Olympic games in Sochi cost >50 billion dollars to organize, when budget stated about 20 billion less. In a country as poor as Russia? And at the same time they have the biggest reserves of natural resources in the world. When a Chief of Police of one of their states "committed suicide" on shooting range few years ago it was found out that his wealth was nearly 500 million dollars. Yeah, that is how corrupt Russia is.
sharePutin built everything from scartch - ski resorts, ice arenas, jump facilities, roads, airports, top notch accomodations. Nothing whatsoever of suitable quality was there. The $50B cost seems quite low actually, considering that Big Dig in Boston ultimately cost $25 Billion, and it was when oil still averaged around $30/barrel and all the building materials were far cheaper. American Intelligence gobbles $80 billion a year to do what exactly? Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - both lost - were consuming $170 Billion a year. Here Russians spend $50 billion in 5 years to build amazing first world infrastructure where there were just ruins - and you get all worked up. Want to see real corruption? Look closer to home, bro.
It is even more corrupt, but you can dig it out. Just one example, because its recent: Olympic games in Sochi cost >50 billion dollars to organize, when budget stated about 20 billion less. In a country as poor as Russia? And at the same time they have the biggest reserves of natural resources in the world. When a Chief of Police of one of their states "committed suicide" on shooting range few years ago it was found out that his wealth was nearly 500 million dollars. Yeah, that is how corrupt Russia is.
shareI'm Russian and yes it's pretty accurate.
shareThis is a bad question. If by corruption you mean the likelihood of a politician accepting a bribe, then this film is not a good example of that. If you mean immorality and perversion, I'd say politicians are about the same everywhere.
The trivia does say that the Heemeyer case inspired some of the story. That happened in Colorado.
I didn't find the level of corruption to be particularly high in this film. It is only one element of the film.
There is a strong tendency for people who dislike Putin to exaggerate the corruption in Leviathan because of the scene of the corrupt mayor sitting below a portrait of Putin. They think this visual link symbolises Russian corruption at the state level in a meaningful way, rather than it merely being common in many countries to have the portrait of the head of state hanging in public offices. The film depicts one corrupt local official of a small town and somehow that's supposed to be an convincing indictment of the Russian political system as a whole.
For real endemic corruption, Leviathan is nothing compared to Italian films based on real events that deal with the collusion of politicians with the Mafia. For instance Gomorrah, Il Divo and the films of Francesco Rosi, such as Cadaveri eccellenti.