A Film a Week - The Owner / Hozyan

 previously published on Cineuropa

Over the course of the last decade, Yury Bykov has positioned himself as something of a renaissance man in Russian independent cinema. Beyond writing and directing a number of modestly budgeted, genre-infused and socially charged films, he has also often acted, edited and composed the music for them.

His newest effort, The Owner, which had been in production since 2020, finally premiered at last year’s edition of the Geneva International Film Festival. Most recently, it scooped the top prize at Belgrade International Film Festival FEST, marking the helmer’s second time winning the Belgrade Victor award, after the success o The Fool back in 2015.

Once again, Bykov deals with an ordinary man who gets entangled with corruption in the contemporary Russian provinces. This time, our man is Ivan / Vanya Menshov (Artyom Bystrov, star of The Fool), a modest car mechanic living a simple life with his wife (Klavdiya Korshunova) and their two children in a snowy provincial town. Their lives are about to be changed when they witness a horrific car accident, after which Vanya reacts promptly and bravely, saving the man involved from his burning car.

That man, however, is not an ordinary person, but Dmitri / Dima Rodin (Oleg Fomin), the most powerful local FSB (Federal Security Service) agent, and, as it turns out, the master of business, life and death in the region. The two start spending more and more time together, which initially turns out to be rather beneficial for Vanya as he quickly rises in the ranks of the luxury car dealership owner’s affairs. However, both Dima’s power in the greater scheme of things and his gratitude have their limits, and so does Vanya’s tolerance towards Dima’s shady and vengeful character…

Bykov once again creates a lean but powerful political thriller powered by the lived-in performances of his actors, who elevate their archetypal characters to a more life-like plane. The visual style employed to portray the contrasts between crumbling Soviet-era urban locations and the perks of the nouveau-riche lifestyle, with hand-held camerawork that tends to get shaky during the action sequences, is quite suitable. The same goes for Anna Krutiy’s dynamic editing, which makes the film’s two-hour runtime seem much shorter. Even Bykov’s writing has improved from his previous efforts, and his penchant for preaching through the mouths of his characters is kept at a bare minimum.

On the other hand, it seems that Bykov is now more critical of the system as a whole, as The Owner aims higher than corrupt police officers (The Major), local officials (The Fool), or tycoons who privatise the factories (The Factory). Dima’s profession might be a clear hint at whom his character is a stand-in for, while the repeating motif of grassroots ecological protests being dispersed at his order may indicate what Bykov represents.