Le bannissement

Andrey Zvyagintsev's "The Banishment" is a stark, grave allegory of marital and familial disintegration. The father, Alexander (Best Actor at Cannes 2007, Konstantin Lavronenko)—a slight, lithe, laconic character—faces an unconscionable choice midway through the film. His wife, Vera (Maria Bonnevie), is a quietly tired mother masking a great deal of uncertainty behind pained eyes and faded beauty. Their young children, Kir and Eva, sense that a storm is brewing. This is Zvyagintsev's despairing poetry on the toxic disconnect between loved ones, surveying the limbo between the way things are and the way it should be.

"I'm pregnant, but it's not yours," Vera says unhurriedly, looking at her husband imploringly, eyes beseeching, as they lounge on the patio of Alexander's hilltop childhood home in the countryside, far away from the bleak greys of the industrial city where they reside. In that moment, Alexander realises the shift from mental to physical infidelity, less mindful to the betrayal he refuses to talk about than he is to his pride taking a dent. For the first time, the angular complexity of Lavronenko's face twists into a wordless rage that reveals his only response to the malaise rising within this marriage.

Alexander meets surreptitiously with his shady brother Mark (Aleksandr Baluyev), a criminal sort that needed stitching up and a bullet removed from his arm in the dead of the night just days before. Mark informs Alexander of a gun he left up in a dresser at their father's home. The moral landscape opens up here with two paths—to forgive or to kill. Both choices demand a hefty price, but remain acceptable as long as one is able to reconcile one's self with it.

Zvyagintsev creates a dreary mood piece, sustained with tension and a deeply burdening excavation of secrets and silence. There's an exploration of miscommunication here, not lies. The unspoken becomes just as virulent as falsities; the emotional estrangement between people becomes a source of dehumanising decay. The story of family is timeless in its essence, but intermittent, it's intrinsic morality however, is everything. Once again, the past has a way of rearing itself into the future. Just as Zvyagintsev saw profundity in the role of the Father in his mesmerising debut, "The Return", he sees the same here in the dynamics between parents and of spouses. The themes remain similar, but the religiosity of his enterprise is clunkier and more obtrusive.

While the acknowledged influence is Andrei Tarkovsky—nature and pastoral simplicity as it relates to the inner self and the interplay of religious iconography—the resonance of the camera is plainly Zvyagintsev's. The director, once again working with the cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, seems incapable of framing an ugly image: the open spaces of the golden countryside becomes stupefying and the creaky house itself hinges on a chasm, a solitary wooden bridge is the sole connection to a world outside the confines of family. As the narrative bends and folds, so does Zvyagintsev's virtuosity with visual chicanery—images and shots blend into one another, revealing the webs of space and time.

For all its technical poise, Zvyagintsev's story lacks the emotional veracity of his debut. From each shot, right down to its script, everything is so precisely composed that the film becomes antiseptic beneath the tragedy by justifying its theoretical banality with intense symbolism and inorganic actions. Characters have weight but no reality—they seem becalmed, even unaffected—they are ideas acted upon, props for a rambling parable and dangerously on the verge of evoking ennui. But in spite of its inherently languorous sermon, Zvyagintsev tackles the film with the cinematic prose of epic literature by enveloping the film with an aura of solemnity and disquiet.

Andrei Zvyagintsev's second film "The Banishment," if evaluated closely, could arguably be as interesting as his first film The Return, if not better. Both relate to related concepts "Father" and "Love/Absence of Love." In both films, there are few words spoken.

To evaluate "The Banishment" is like completing a challenging crossword puzzle. You would know this unusual situation if you have seen "The Return." To begin "The Return" was not based on a novel. This one is. That, too, a William Saroyan novel—"The Laughing Matter." Yet the director is not presenting us with Saroyan's novel on the screen. He develops the wife as a woman "more sinn'd against than sinning," while in the novel she is mentally unstable. Understandably, the director decides to drop the Saroyan title. Thus the words "I am going to have a child. It's not yours" provides two utterly distinct scenarios depending on whether the woman who speaks those words to her husband is a saintly person or a mentally unhinged woman. The change in the character of the wife by the director opens a totally new perspective to the Saroyan story—a tool that contemporary filmmakers frequently use, not to wreck literary works, but creatively revive interest in the possibilities a change in the original work provides.

Those viewers familiar with the plethora of Christian symbolism in "The Return" will spot the painting on which the children play jigsaw is one of an angel visiting Mary, mother of Jesus, to reveal that she will give birth even if she is a virgin. This shot is followed by a black kitten walking across the painting. And the forced abortion operation at the behest of the husband begins on Vera, the wife in Zvyagintsev's film. By the end of the film the viewer will realize that the director had left a clue for the viewer—not through conventional character development using long conversations.

"The Banishment" is representative of contemporary cinema provoking viewers to enjoy cinema beyond the story by deciphering symbols strewn around amongst layers of meaning structured within the screenplay.

As usual, the cinema of director Zvyagintsev is full of allusions to the Bible. This is the third famous film that refers to a single abstract chapter in the Bible on love: 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. In "The Banishment" the chapter is read by the neighbors' daughters. In Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blue", set to the musical score sung towards the end of the film a choral musical piece sings the words "If I have not love, I am nothing" from the same Biblical chapter commenting indirectly on communication breakdown between husband and wife and the slow and painful reconciliation with the husband's lover. Bergman's "Through a glass darkly" is a phrase on taken from the same chapter of the Bible, a film also on lack of communication and love between father and son, husbands and wives.

The banishment alludes to the banishment of Adam from the Garden of Eden represented in the film by the anti-hero's tranquil family house, far from the inferred socio-political turbulence elsewhere. Soon after the wife's proclamation we see her children playing with the jigsaw puzzle depicting an angel appearing to Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, that she will bear a child. These clues indicate to the viewer that wife was innocent. In the movie, these are but a few of the dozens of symbols and metaphors that extend even to the selection of classical music. As usual, the cinema of director Zvyagintsev is full of allusions to the Bible. The banishment alludes to the banishment of Adam from Eden represented in the film by the anti-hero's tranquil family house, far from the inferred socio-political turbulence elsewhere. A black kitten crosses the jigsaw puzzle and tragedy follows. These clues indicate to the viewer that wife was innocent. In the movie, these are but a few of the dozens of symbols and metaphors that extend even to the selection of classical music Bach's Magnificat or the "Song of Virgin Mary". There is washing of the brother's bullet hit arm, reminiscent of Pilate washing his hands in the Bible.

While the story and structure of "The Return" is easier to comprehend, "The Banishment" is more complex. The first half of the film entices the viewer to reach the wrong conclusions. The Father is correct, the wife is wrong. The second half of the film surprises the viewer as all assumptions of the viewer made from the preceding episodes are turned topsy-turvy. Men are arrogant, egotistical and father children without love. There is no love in the silent train journey of the family while the wife is looking at her husband with love. Like Kieslowski's "Blue" the woman appears stronger than the man—and in an apt epilogue its women (harvesting a field) who are singing a song of hope and regeneration.

A supposed major flaw noted by critics is the lack of character development. In this film, Zvyagintsev develops characters using silent journeys (lack of communication) and misconstruing of reality ("child is not ours"), very close to the storyline of the director's first film. Actually, Zvyagintsev progresses in this second film by extending the relationship of "Father and children" in the first film, to "Father and wife" in the second. In the first film, children do not understand the father; in the second, the father does not understand his wife. When he does it is too late, just as the kids in the first film of the director. This is a film that requires several viewings to savor its many ingredients of photography, music, and screenplay writing. Zvyagintsev is not merely copying directors Tarkovsky, Bergman and Kieslowski—-he is exploring new territories by teasing his viewer to "suspend his/her belief" and constantly re-evaluate what was shown earlier.

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. -- Fyodor Dostoevsky

This second feature film from Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev had a lot to live up to considering how great his 2003 debut, The Return, was. I was really a bit skeptical going in because the advanced reviews had been mixed, and I really didn't know how a director who had made such brilliant use of the Russian landscape as almost a perpetually menacing character in its own right, would handle what sounded like a very indoor domestic drama. Boy was I wrong to doubt. Zvyagintsev and cinematographer Mikhail Krichman find an abundance of interesting things to shoot, from drab constantly overcast soviet-era industrial cities to old decaying farmsteads. I love the way these two frame and light almost every shot and the slow stalking way the camera pans and moves is almost deliberately predatory. I'd probably be mesmerized if these two shot nothing but landscapes and people for two hours with no plot whatsoever, which, to be fair, is what the movie feels like at times, considering how minimal and terse the typically Russian script is. The story revolves around a man (played by Konstantin Lavronenko who also starred in the Return), who moves his wife and two young children from the city to his father's old farm in the country where he expects better prospects for work. While in the country his wife reveals something that threatens to tear the family apart. Like the Return, the Banishment is about the tragic consequences of the failure of individuals to make emotional contact, communicate, and ultimately understand each other. Unfortunately the final denouement, which unravels through a few too many twists for a story this simple and sparse, is really unsatisfying because it strips all the characters of any last shred of sympathy, leaving the audience almost indifferent towards them. Still, this was so brilliantly photographed and paced that I couldn't help but enjoy every shot.

Not as strong as Zvyagintsev's haunting 2003 debut 'The Return'/'Vozvrashcheniye' (grand prize at Venice--I reviewed it when it was shown theatrically in the US the following year), this adaptation of William Saroyan's 1953 novella, "The Laughing Matter," is recognizable for its intense, slow-paced style and beautiful cinematography (by Mikhail Krichman). 'Izgnanie' (the Russian title) takes us out to a remote country house where there are thin roads, grassy fields over gentle hills, herds of sheep -- and old friends, because this is the childhood home of the protagonist Alex (Konstantin Lavronenko), who's brought his family out there for summer vacation. But before that (and a signal of a certain disjointedness of the whole film) we observe Mark (Alexander Baluev), Alex's obviously gangsterish brother, getting him to remove a bullet from his arm. this is also the first of a series of failures to seek adequate medical treatment. Now we move to Alex with his wife Vera (Maria Bonnevie) taking their young son Kir (Maxim Shibaev) and younger daughter Eva (Katya Kulkina) out to the country by car.

Zvagintsev certainly takes his time with every action of the film. It's as if he thought he was writing a 500-page novel rather than making a movie. The effect is not so much a sense of completeness as a kind of hypnotic trance. Everything is marked by the fine clear light, the frequent use of long shots, and the pale blue filters that give everything a distinctive look. Some of the long landscape shots are absolutely stunning, and the interior light and the way shadows gently caress the faces are almost too good to be true.

When another family comes into the picture and they all spend a day outdoors, the sense of familiarity, summer listlessness, and vague unease made me think of a play by William Inge or Tennessee Williams. That may seem odd for a Russian movie, but the names are only partly Russian, the location is deliberately indeterminate, and Saroyan's source story is set in a long-ago California, not in Russia. Zvyagintsev doesn't seem to work in the real world but in some kind of super-real nether-land. Whether it is unforgettable or simply off-putting seems to vary. In 'The Return' it as the former; here it is more the latter.

Vera drops a bombshell, when she announces she's pregnant and that the child isn't his. The tragedy that slowly but inexorably follows arises from a derangement in the wife and a misunderstanding by the husband. To deal with the problem Alex wants the children out of the way and he is happy to have them stay at the friends' house, where they're putting together a large jigsaw puzzle of Leonardo da Vinci's painting, 'The Annunciation'. I'm indebted to Jay Weissberg's review in 'Variety' for this identification; Weissberg adds, "That... isn't the only piece of heavy-handed religious imagery on offer. There's Alex washing his brother's blood off his hands, Eva/Eve offered an apple, and a Bible recitation from 1 Corinthians about love ("It does not insist on its own way"), handily set apart by a bookmark depicting Masaccio's 'The Expulsion From the Garden of Eden.' OK, we get it, but that doesn't mean the parallels offer a doorway into personalities who offer little emotional residue on their own." And he is right: Zvyagintsev's fascination with Italian painting, and here also with the Bible, doesn't change the fact that the characters nonetheless remain, this time, troublingly opaque. Mark is an adviser and stimulus to action for Alex. Robert (Dmitry Ulianov) is a third brother who enters the picture later. I will not go into the details because the chief interest of the film is its slow revelations.

And yet the revelations don't quite convince, because for one thing they do not fully explain. The wife's behavior remains unaccountable. And a long flashback in the latter part of the film seems to come too late, and to explain too much, yet without explaining enough. None of this is the fault of the actors, who are fine, including the children.

Zvyagintsev's second film, then, is a disappointment and a puzzlement. I began to think after a while that the whole thing would be much more effective if it were done in a very simple style, with simply workmanlike photography, in a film trimmed of all externals, down to the bone, something noirish like Robert Siodmak's 'The Killers' or Kubrick's 'The Killing.' We are left to figure things out anyway, so why all the flourishes? Yet Zvyagintsev's style is nonetheless beautiful, and one only hopes he finds material that works better for him next time. I was thrilled with 'The Return' and wrote of it in my IMDb Comment: "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." The excitement I felt about the first film is why the new one feels like such a let-down.

Seen as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series Film Comment Selects 2008 (February 25) at the Walter Reade Theater, NYC.

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Those who have seen Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev's first film "The Return" will have no trouble in realizing that his second film "Izgnanie" /"The Banishment" is equally impressive.However,his second film is little less effective despite having many themes in common with his first film.It can be surmised that it was due to intriguing focus on adults instead of children.This is exactly the reason why many a times viewers might get the impression that children are used merely as unavailing props.Astute viewers will also notice that many references to Tarkovsky are quite natural and self explanatory as Andrei Zvyagintsev is an honorable heir of that famous Russian school of cinema which prides itself in observing minute things in greater detail.It is true that a film maker must not give all answers to viewers but highhandedness of Andrei Zvyagintsev's direction failed to engage viewers.This is one reason why so many essential questions remained unanswered throughout the film.But this would surely not deprive any sagacious viewers to enjoy this extremely meaningful film with excellent focus on art direction especially in the manner interiors have been created.