Le retour

"The Return," a breathtakingly austere masterpiece from the land that gave us Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Tarkovsky, is one of the most beautifully acted and directed films I have seen in years. Astonishingly enough, this is the feature film debut for director Andrei Zvyagintsev who demonstrates more of a mastery and command of the medium in this his maiden effort than most directors do in a whole body of work.

The film tells the tale of two brothers, Ivan and Andrei, who live with their mother and grandmother in a small coastal village in Russia. One day, totally unexpectedly, the boys' father returns after a twelve-year absence. In an effort to make up for lost time, the dad decides to take his sons on a fishing trip, but, almost immediately, he begins to demonstrate disturbing tendencies towards domination and abuse. He also appears to be up to some sort of nefarious business operations to which neither we nor the boys are entirely privy.

Every single moment of this film is a revelation. Zvyagintsev beautifully captures the opposite ways in which the boys react to and interact with their father. Andrei, the oldest, is so desperate for a father figure in his life that he is willing to overlook the often inexplicable, bizarre and possibly even dangerous behavior that this particular father exhibits. Ivan, on the other hand, embittered by years of absence and neglect, seethes with barely disguised rage at the man who now presumes to enter into their once happy lives and assert his authority. Of the two boys, he seems the most tuned into the kind of threat the father may pose to their welfare. Yet, towards the end of the story, the apparently latent love the boy feels for this man as his father does eventually rise to the surface. Through this intense interaction, the film emerges as a complex and profound study of what father and son relationships are really all about.

It is virtually impossible to put into words just how brilliantly the two young actors use their facial expressions to convey a wealth of meaning and emotion. As portrayed by Vladimir Garin, Andrey looks up to his father with a mixture of boyish pride and trembling awe, longing for the kind of male affirmation he has been deprived of all these years. He is desperate to please his father by proving to him that he can perform the acts of manhood that his dad keeps putting forth for him to do. As Ivan, Ivan Dobronravov spends most of his time glaring at the man, his mouth pursed in a tight unyielding grimace of resentment and hate. If I could give an award for the best performance by a child actor in movie history, these two youngsters would be high on my list of candidates. They are that amazing. Tragically, young Garin drowned two months prior to the release of the film, leaving his indelible mark behind in a performance that will never be forgotten by anyone privileged enough to witness it. Konstantin Lavronenko is equally impressive as the boy's mysterious father, beautifully underplaying the part of a man who can appear sane and rational on the surface but who is a seething cauldron of untapped emotions beneath. In fact, it is this constant threat of violence always on the verge of eruption that keeps us off balance and on edge throughout the entire picture.

The film's writers, Vladimir Moiseyenko and Aleksandr Novotosky, deserve special recognition for not allowing the plot to overwhelm the characters. For this is, first and foremost, a great character study. The scenarists have intentionally left the background of the father vague and sketchy, the better to enhance the sense of mystery and danger he represents. We never find out what nefarious activities he is involved with since that is of virtually no importance either to the children or to us. We are too engrossed in the relationships of the characters to care. In fact, there are a few hints towards the end of the film that this seemingly cold, uncaring man, for all his myriad faults, might actually just love his sons in his own strange way. The film leaves us with no easy answers or pat resolutions at the end. And this is how it should be. In fact, the scriptwriters even throw a few of Hitchcock's prized "MacGuffins" into the mix to keep us off balance (there is a scene in which some possibly stolen money sinks to the bottom of a lake that is highly reminiscent of what happens in "Psycho")..

Among other things, "The Return" represents one of the most impressive directorial debuts since Francois Truffaut's "The 400 Blows." Zvyagintsev's ability to draw great performances from his actors is only one of his many talents on display here. His lyrical use of composition, as well as the way in which he makes nature and weather an integral part of his drama help to draw us so deeply into this world that it takes the viewer literally hours to get fully back to his own existence again once the movie has ended. It reverberates for days afterwards. For as with any great film, "The Return" finds its way into the depths of one's soul and leaves the viewer a richer person for the experience.

Winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival (2003), "The Return" is a true work of art and one of the outstanding films of the decade so far. Whatever you do, don't miss this film.

What child doesn't long for the parent he's never had, even with mom and dad arguing in the next room? What boy hasn't endured a week that seemed to encompass a lifetime? We begin with the wrenching ordeal of 8-year-old Ivan, or Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov), who's watched by a gang of his mates while he freezes with fear at the top of a wooden tower over a chilly swimming hole and can't get down till his mom comes to fetch him. He has a fierce argument with the other boys and his older brother, Andrey (Vladimir Garin) that shows his strength of character. Vanya's intense will and need to prove his courage will dominate the story, which depicts what happens when the boys' dad (Konstantin Lavronenko) suddenly appears after an absence of 12 years and takes the two boys on a fishing trip. They run back to the house, they see their beautiful mom, and she says 'Be quiet, your father is sleeping.' That's how they learn he's reappeared. The shot of him looking like Mantegna's 'Dead Christ' as the boys peep into the bedroom where he lies sleeping exemplifies the film's austere beauty.

We tolerate the mysterious father - his cruelty never seems quite over the top - because there's a perverted tenderness in his hardness with Ivan and Andrey. He wants to make up for lost time: he wants to shape them in these few days; wants to help them become men. He's always a nurturer and teacher as well as a demanding brute. The mystery that surrounds the man evokes the gap between all children and adults. They boys aren't even sure he's their real father, but their mother says so. The bond between the two boys has become the more intense in the absence of a father and the scene in their bedroom the first night when they talk excitedly about the day ahead is as vivid, beautifully photographed, and superbly acted as all the rest. The expressiveness of the two boys' faces is beyond wonderful.

This stunning debut features exceptional performances by the talented young actors, brilliant storytelling in a fable-like tale that's as resonant as it is specific, and exquisite cinematography not quite like any one's ever seen before. There's something haunting about the sound track too - the way the clear voices emerge from silence and blend with music. There's nothing in "The Return" that isn't fresh and compelling. It's unlikely that there are any more intense evocations of boyhood or relations with a father on film.

The lovely, cool physicality of the movie's images reinforces the sharp contrast between the winsome, cheerful Andrey and the dour, intense Ivan. Andrey seems to bond right away with their dad but it's Vanya who makes the underlying rules of their week together. Ivan always wants something, if only a meal or to be fishing, at a different time from the other two. He's a kvetch. But beyond that, his passion and discontent are terrifying. That big almost ghoulish angry face atop the little body looks like a man's and haunts us when Andrey's bright eyes and smile have faded from memory. Despite his hardness, their nameless father seems almost unformed next to Vanya. It's a battle of wills. Vanya refuses to eat when they finally get to a restaurant and his father won't let him eat later. Vanya complains about leaving a fishing place to drive on and his father dumps him at a bridge for hours where he sits huddled in freezing rain. It's an ordeal, and getting stuck in the mud is another struggle and battle of wills in which the father of course wins and saves them. Yet there are moments of sheer joy when the boys click with their father and delight in the new places and scenes that they view through binoculars and photograph with a 35-mm. camera. The trip ends at a deserted island where their father has a secret mission and little Vanya's torment leads to a disturbing finale.

The Return heralds the appearance of a gifted new filmmaker, perhaps a great one. At times it evokes such recent lonely, austere masterpieces as Bruno Dumont's 'Vie de Jésus,' Van Sant's underrated 'Gerry,' and Jim Jarmusch's 'Dead Man.' But Zvyagintsev is Zvyagintsev and nobody else. There's an exciting new director on the world cinematic scene and we'd better learn how to get our tongues around this slippery Slavic name. ('The Return' won the grand prize -- the "Leone d'Oro" -- at the Venice Film Festival last year. It's not hard to see why.)

I've seen many emotional films in my life, but I've never seen a film with as much emotional intensity as Vozvrashcheniye. Even though I don't know what it is like to have a distance or missing parent, I feel I've suffered the same feelings that other children in this situation must have.

The emotional content of the film continues if you watch the documentary on the making of the film included in the DVDs extras. This is no ordinary film; the feelings of the director, the cinematographer, the producer, and the personal experiences of each of the actors; words cannot describe the heart every single person put into this film. The insufficiency of words can also be described by the film itself -there isn't a heavy amount of dialogue, and there doesn't need to be (even though for the majority of the film you're screaming at the characters to say something!). To quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky (a Russian author): "there is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words."

This little review doesn't do justice to the film for the same reason. It is for this reason, this insufficiency that words have, why films (like this one) need to be created.

We get plenty of US/UK movies, a reasonable amount of European and oriental movies, but it is comparatively rare that we get a movie from Russia over here. Russian film-making has a very distinctive style and tradition, so good examples of it are a welcome change. Certainly The Return lives up to any expectations of good art-house. The Russian outback is noted for its harshness and it probably requires a particular type of character to survive and flourish there. This unusual coming-of-age movie looks at two brothers raised largely by their mother. When their father returns after 12 years and takes them on an extended fishing trip they react very differently. The father is authoritarian – a complete change for the boys from the protective mother. He is a complex figure – is he a pilot? A crook? Part of him seems to genuinely love the boys and want to help them toughen up for the world they will live in, but the trip has tragic consequences.

I wandered a bit from commenting movies. But I had to return. This movie made me do it. I didn't know anything about it. I only saw one trailer, that did its job perfectly. Everyone said it was incredible. I went and saw it. I found it more than incredible, staggering at least. It start as a pure, simple story and never wanders from its main character or its story not the slightest bit. Its jaw-breaking stripped-to-the-bone structure is a true novelty. Its young actors reveal themselves worthy of a standing ovation. It's difficult to find words to talk about this movie when it conveys such emotion by so few means. It's a fantastic, cold and often unbearable voyage through a deserted horizon, and one of the best movies of the year.