By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Starring: Alexandr Baluyev | Konstantin Lavronenko | Maria Bonnevie | Maxim Shibaev
Original language title: Izgnanie
Country: russia
Year: 2007
Running time: 150
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488905/
Bruce says: “Using William Saroyan’s The Laughing Matter as a basis for THE BANISHMENT, Andrei Zvyagintsev follows up his sensational directorial debut, THE RETURN. Konstantin Lavronenko, who played the father in THE RETURN, won the Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in THE BANISHMENT.
“The film opens and closes with a car traveling the same winding, roller coaster road in the countryside. The drivers of the car are different in each scene and much happens in between the two trips. At the beginning the driver is Mark one of two brothers who, as the plot unfolds, appear to be small time mobsters, possibly hitmen. Mark has a bullet wound in his upper left shoulder. He arrives at his brother Alex’s house, removes a tourniquet and asks Alex to remove the bullet. Sensing danger Alex takes his wife Vera, their son and daughter to his late father’s house in the country. After the children are asleep on the first night Vera tells Alex, ‘I’m expecting a child and it’s not yours.’ This is the pivotal moment in the story, for nothing remains the same after Alex receives the news.
“In the days that follow Alex broods and Vera seems lost in reverie. ‘What’s going on with us it’s a game,’ he says. She replies ‘I know what you and your brother are.’ Alex decides on his own that there should be a truce. ‘Be their mother; I’ll be their father,’ is his request to Vera but his vision of parenting does not include the unborn child. Several friends in the country become involved in the drama and Mark returns unexpectedly to the country house. Mark’s counsel to Alex is that whatever decision he makes will be the right one. Such moral latitude does nothing to help Alex focus on the real issues at hand or to help him communicate further with Vera. Tension mounts during the events that lead up to the tragic ending of the film where the need for emotional resolution overrides physical risks.
“The volatile emotional landscape of the narrative and the disconsolate mood created by the film’s stunning visual design are what resonate most about THE BANISHMENT. Curiously, other than bedtime reading when the children visit a neighbor’s house, no mention is made of any of the forms of love – romantic, filial or fraternal – that pervade the story. Maria Bonnevie is lovely as the disillusioned, taciturn Vera. Konstantin Lavronenko’s performance is powerful. 4.5 cats
“THE BANISHMENT screened at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.”
Thom says: “I liked this film very much but I thought it asked more questions than it answered, not necessarily a problem in films, but in this film I found it problematical. I suppose I might have found fault with anything after the bravura (5 CATS) THE
RETURN. Bruce goes a long way in explaining the film in his fine review. I saw this with Chlotrudis stalwarts Chris & Bruce at the TIFF. 4 cats”