Vozvrashcheniye (The Return)

Two young brothers Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrey (Vladimir Garin) living in a small town with there mother come home one afternoon to find there father, who they have neither seen nor heard from for years, has returned. The father (Konstantin Lavronenko) informs the boys that they will accompany them on a fishing trip. Although the boys are conflicted about leaving home with this man they hardly know, the proposed trip receives their mother’s blessing, and it is decided they will leave the following morning.

As they drive cross country with their father, the boys’ begin to realize that this man, who remains taciturn and strict with his sons, is not the man that Ivan and Andrey have imagined him to be. The trip becomes a battle of wills between father and son, and as they reach the lake and row out to a deserted island, it becomes clear that this trip has nothing to do with fishing.

“There are things which are without answers” director Andrey Zvyagintsev has said about “Vozvrashcheniye” (translated to English as "The Return"), his first film. The Siberian-born Andrey Zvyagintsev, has, with cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, taken a screenplay for a conventional genre picture (written by Vladimir Moiseenko and Alexander Novototsky) and transformed it into a complex metaphysical drama about the passage from boyhood to manhood, imbuing a rather simple story with a dark moodiness, allegorical resonance, and a poetically subtle menace. The film’s action is almost entirely psychological, as the boys struggle to understand this man and what he wants from them (the film requires a degree of intuitive participartion of its audience), and their disorientation intensifies as they travel deeper and deeper into their father’s world. Eventually, they reach a point where they must decide whether or not to act.

The consequences of the choice they make are somehow both shocking and a relief. Influenced by the work of Tarkovsky, Bresson, and Wenders, “Vozvrashcheniye” is an excellent film that requires close attention, a movie that will stay with you for some time, and likely foster conversation after it is over.

Matt Parks (7.18.04)