The Return (Vozvrashcheniye)

[christine]

The haunting Russian film The Return is the directorial debut of Andrei Zvyagintsev, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice film Fest a few years ago. As well as other European awards and a Golden Globe.

It's the enigmatic story of a father returning after an absence of twelve years to the family home where he announces he's taking his two sons, Andrei and Ivan aged around 11 and 14 on a fishing trip. We are not party to where the father has been or the feelings of the mother. The fishing trip is a mysterious ride, and full of pent up emotion. The two boys, the eldest eager to please, the younger sullen and truculant don't have an easy time with their strange father.

It's a mysterious film. Not one to watch if you need your films to have full explanation and completion, but one that requires an investment of thought and patience.

The landscape plays a major part in the film, crisp shots of clear blue skies, woodland and misty lakes, give a wide open view in contrast to the disturbing relationship between father and sons.

The death by drowning of the 16 year old actor Vladimir Garin who plays Andrei, only months after the films completion, gives a terrible poignancy to watching the film. What a sad loss of a talented young actor. Excellent acting too from the other lad Ivan Dobronravov, whose glowering little face provides feistiness to the youngest son.


http://www.kino.com/thereturn/textareas/return_stil/photo10.jpg

[Strummer521]

Nice review Christine. I'll check this out if I can track it down. Is this your first review or have I just missed the others? If it's the first, please keep 'em coming. If its not, then please direct me to the others cuz I wanna read them all. :)
BTW, the cinematography in this one looks great.

[Caitlyn]

Great review... this sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing... :)

[christine]

Thanks Caitlyn :)

Strummer - the cinematography is gorgeous. He's had some comparisons to Tarkovsky in the lingering shots of water and other natural stuff. The colours are wonderful - one of those whose stills could be hung on a wall in contrast to the continually brooding atmosphere. In fact the end credits are preceded by a fantastic array of black and white stills , outakes from on set. I forgot to say that the music is excellent too.

(this is my 2nd review, my first was The Descent - a little different from this one ;))

[Tacitus]

Nice review Chris. Russian cinema is something that I don't know much about, I'll look out for this. :)

[Piddzilla]

I've been wanting to see this one for some time now. It's probably next up now since there will be someone here to discuss it with now.

[adidasss]

i think i might go insane.....i've been mentioning this film for about 2 months now in the recommend foreign fav's thread but noone payed any attention to me....now everyone is saying they'll look out for this one.....*has an aneurisam*
it would be superific if someone made a thread about "the sea within" ("mar adentro") and then you lot go " yes, i will definetly watch out for this one"....man, i'm so crippled by the lack of any sort of writing talent or just putting together a coherent thought in writing....

[christine]

Sorry to steal your thunder adidasss, I've not been here long and I did look back to see if a review thread had already been done and couldn't find one. Isn't it better to do a review of a film on its own rather than stick it in a general recommended thread?

Funny thing is, I just rented out The Sea Within this afternoon and will be watching it tonight! Hey why don't you do a Sea Within thread now, and I'll add to it later :)

[adidasss]

no worries about stealing my thunder...like i said i have no writing talent whatsoever and i can't put two coherent thoughts together so you go right ahead and write that review....maybe it will draw peoples attention to the movie...lord knows the return and the sea within are amongst the best movies i've seen ( the sea within a is a tad better ) and they deserve their own threads...

[Piddzilla]

I've just seen The Return. Absolutely fantastic film. Go here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=271339&postcount=43) for a so so review... ;)

[EDIT] Oh, and Christine... I didn't read your initial post very carefully since I didn't want to know too much about the film before I saw it. So there might be some repeating in my review of what you've allready said about it. Like about the tragic death of Garin. So sad.

[christine]

I've not been able to get this film out of my head since I saw it. I really must buy the dvd cos I hear there's a good docu on it thats not on the rental copy. Reading up more about it, it has layers yet to be revealed. I did sense some religious allusions but some people have explored more deeply than maybe my poorer biblical knowledge would allow and revealed more layers to explore. I like that!

Don't look at these links if you haven't seen the film!

Here's a decent review (http://www.reverseshot.com/spring05/return.html) and an interview with the director (http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040202return.html)

[christine]

wow was that three years ago we were talking about The Return. Anyway just revived the thread to remind people of the excellence of the film and in case anyone might want to see it before the UK release of the director's latest film The Banishment - anyone seen that one yet?

[Justin]

Great film -- you should also check out Aleksandr Sokurov's films:


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0812546/

[adidasss]

wow was that three years ago we were talking about The Return. Anyway just revived the thread to remind people of the excellence of the film and in case anyone might want to see it before the UK release of the director's latest film The Banishment - anyone seen that one yet?
MY wittle rant/"review"...;) (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=397625&highlight=banishment#post397625)

Oh and I thought we weren't going to bump old threads where I sound like a retarded 12-year old? ;)

@Justin: I've seen two Sokurov's films, Father and son and The Russian ark, neither of which I've liked very much (despite the obvious homoeroticism of the former which the director has vehemently denied, lol). He's a bit too artsy for my taste...:\

[christine]

dammit I should've looked on your reviews! I did a search too before I posted...sorry! but, hmm not so good then? I'll still go and see it so we can compare.

Justin, I've seen Russian Ark, which was very spectacular and I have the dvd of The Sun, but have never been in the mood to watch it so far.

btw Adi , I got Blind Shaft last week and got Blind Mountain (you seen that too?) at the same time. Will try and watch 'em soon :)

[adidasss]

dammit I should've looked on your reviews! I did a search too before I posted...sorry! but, hmm not so good then? I'll still go and see it so we can compare.
Oh yeah, definitely, there's a good chance you'll still like it. A lot of people seem to be praising it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. :)

Speaking of good recent Russian films, have you seen The island? So much better than The banishment...:yup:


btw Adi , I got Blind Shaft last week and got Blind Mountain (you seen that too?) at the same time. Will try and watch 'em soon :) Sweet, lemme know how you like them (I've not seen the latter).

[Justin]

Come and See is one of my favorite war films, perhaps even one of my favorite films..

Highly, highly recommended -- but not for the faint of heart.

[christine]

Speaking of good recent Russian films, have you seen The island? So much better than The banishment...:yup:

Is it this one? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0851577/ Not seen it but I'll try and find it.

Justin - I've heard about Come and See. Sounds extremely dark. I'll have a look around for it.