Russia's Oscar-tipped "Leviathan" was released in its home country on Thursday, showing on hundreds of screens in a censored version following harsh criticism from officials and Orthodox clerics.
  

Andrei Zvyagintsev's bleak social drama, widely predicted to win best foreign-language film at this month's Oscars, was released on 650 screens across Russia, several months after it came out in the West.
  

The film, a searing critique of Vladimir Putin's Russia, was set for release in November but was delayed by a new law banning swearing in cinemas that forced changes to its expletive-littered dialogue.
  

In Russia, the movie, which is banned for anyone under 18, is being shown with all the swear words cut from the soundtrack without beeps. The characters silently mouth the offending words instead.
  

Despite its Oscar hopes and last month winning Russia's first Golden Globe since the 1960s, the film has faced accusations it is "anti-Russian" and slanted in order to win Western prizes.
  

Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky -- whose ministry partly funded the film -- complained of its "existential hopelessness" and lack of a "positive hero", accusing the director of caring only for "golden statuettes and red carpets."
  

Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin slammed the film as "pessimistic" and "anti-Christian."
  

'No hyperbole'

Director Zvyagintsev defended his work, saying he simply wanted to tell the truth about Russia.
  

"This is no hyperbole, it's a reflection of what is happening in the country," the sof-spoken 50-year-old director told AFP.
  

"You cannot but react to what is going on and respond, without worrying about the consequences for yourself."
  

The Siberian-born director's haunting debut film "The Return" won the top prize at Venice Film Festival in 2003. He followed with "The Banishment", which won best actor at Cannes and "Elena," which won a Cannes special jury prize.
  

Producer Alexander Rodnyansky admitted the heated debate over Leviathan had "attracted far more cinemas... than we expected." Its release is comparable to that for a mainstream commercial movie, despite almost no advertising.
  

"The film has taken on a life that maybe we haven't dreamt of since the Perestroika era," he said, referring to the Soviet period when cinema began to freely show social problems and sex.
 

Set in a desolate northern town, the film tells the story of a mechanic, played by Alexei Serebryakov, who wages a legal battle with the grossly corrupt local mayor to save his family house.
  

It shows the drunken mayor scheming with police, judges and prosecutors in his office under a portrait of Putin and drinking tea with loyal Russian Orthodox clerics who assure him he is doing God's work.
  

The film "has been discussed even by those who haven't watched it and don't plan to," wrote Vedomosti business daily, while Afisha listings magazine called it "the biggest Russian film of the decade."
  

'Hit right in the heart'

The film was leaked online and the makers estimated it had been watched by up to six million people ahead of its Russian release.
  

"I have the feeling that the film hit right in the bullseye, right in the heart... It seems to me that this film is simply necessary now," Zvyagintsev said recently.
  

After a Moscow screening, 23-year-old maths student Alexander praised the film as "very emotional."
  

"This is about what's going on around us," he said.
  

"It's a very truthful film," agreed Anastasia, a 30-year-old scientist. "It needs to be shown widely for a long time so that as many people as possible can see it."
  

Russian film critics have given the film a mixed reception, however.
  

"Leviathan has a concept but it has no heart," wrote Afisha.
  

But Profil magazine praised Zvyagintsev's courage in making "such a precise and honest -- and therefore frightening -- statement about today's Russia." (AFP)