Cannes 2026 – Minotaur: relentless and chilling (review)

Andreï Zviaguintsev revisits La Femme infidèle by Chabrol to tell the story of the excesses, violence and amorality at all levels of Putin’s Russia.

In this Cannes edition where very clever who could give a favorite to the Palme d’Or. (Suddenly ? Fjord ? Paper tigeracclaimed by the international press), a new serious candidate arrived yesterday on the big screen of the Théâtre Lumière. A regular at prizes on the Croisette (Interpretation Prize for his main actor in BanishmentKonstantin Lavrenko in 2007, Un Certain Regard Prize in 2011 for ElenaJury Prize in 2017 for lack of loveScreenplay Prize in 2014 for Leviathan): Andrei Zvyagintsev.

With Minotaurthe 62-year-old Russian filmmaker, exiled in France, revisits here The Unfaithful Wife by Chabrol in the Russia of 2022 where, Gleb, a successful business leader will decide to settle manu militari the adulterous affair that his wife and mother of his son is experiencing with a photographer.

Everything is said in this pitch and the arc of the scenario will leave almost no room for surprise. And it is precisely this assumed programmatic aspect that makes Minotaur so striking. The way in which in this criminal act of revenge, Zvyagintsev encapsulates all the excesses, the silent and much more explicit violence of Putin’s Russia at war with Ukraine. Amorality as a compass, the sacrifice of others in the name of an all-powerful selfishness, the small arrangements and big shenanigans as protective shields of a criminal whose impunity Zviaguintsev recounts through a staging that is both precise and plays on the long duration of the scenes (the cleaning of the crime scene, the disappearance of the body, the face to face with the police, etc.) to better make it unbearable. In one of the final shots, we see a poster paying tribute to a hero who died in the war (the head of security whom Gleb forced to go to the front so that he would not throw him away) is taken down to replace it with another. Nothing seems to be able to stop this nightmare. Here again, everything is said. But shown with great intelligence

By Andreï Zvyagintsev. With Dmitiry Mazurov, Iris Lebedeva, Boris Kudrin… Duration: 2h15. Released October 14, 2026