Refraction and separation are the key elements in the CREATE's release poster for Andrey Zvyagintsev's superb festival prize-winner, Minotaur. There are some echoes and rhymes with the design work of Akiko Stehrenberger, specifically the remake of Funny Games, one of the best posters of the 21st century. There are no tears, however, for this is scathing and cynical critique of Russia in the guise of an infidelity drama, however the typography, the credit block, and the colour palette all track. If you are going to borrow, borrow from the best. (Note also, Minotaur is also a loose and re-contextualized remake of Nouvelle Vague filmmaker Claude Chabols' La Femme Infidèle.)
One of the films key visual motifs is to put its lead characters behind glass. Their modern minimalist home, the corner office, and the luxury SUV, all allow for the couple to hide their crimes and their shame in plain sight. And the refractions of faces here capture this, subtly, but effectively.
Text, in the form of pull quotes and "a film by" exist along these fault lines, while the substantial credit block of tiny text dominate the bottom right. The separation of the faces with a horizontal bar of the film's murder plot is a fitting way to show the intimacy gap between the wealthy married couple, and provide a kind of pedestal for the title card.
The design is elegant, spot on with the subject matter, and has what I can only call the Elevated Euro-Arthouse Aesthetic(tm) that permeates the kind of films that take home top-prizes at Cannes, filter out to other major festivals like Telluride, NYFF and TIFF, and end up on on the Mubi streaming service. Minotaur is also France's submission for foreign language Academy Award.
Friday One Sheet: MINOTAUR