Andrei Zvyagintsev's temperate thriller The Return portrays a mother and two sons living their seemingly unaffected lives, when, without warning, the man of the house (a resolute performance from Konstantin Lavronenko) returns. We as the audience are clueless to whether the mother (or for that matter the live-in grandmother) anticipated his return, but it's apparent that the two boys, Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrei (Vladimir Garin), are taken by surprise. What is clear though is the boys initially resist their new father's regimented philosophies — a stark contrast to mom's. Slowly, the boys warm to their father but remain somewhat cautiously distant during an impromptu fishing trip. The remainder of the film puts the father-son relationship under an unequivocal gaze when the boys are tested along the expedition.
The Return's starkly constructed world smacks of a grim post-WWII shiftlessness, but this is most certainly a timeless, even allegorical tale. A lingering tension concerning the father's motivation seeps to the surface and is bolstered by the children's confusion and wavering allegiance. Filming in extreme northwest Russia near St. Petersburg, on and around Lake Ladoga — (in a tragic twist, the young actor who plays the eldest son, Andrey, drowned in this very lake shortly before the film premiered). Zvyagintsev chooses a befitting and picturesque locale to strengthen the personal conflicts in his humanistic masterwork. The region seems to smile wide and we're treated to lingering, poignant portraits throughout. At times this breadth of dimension and sparse dialogue struggles to invigorate, its smoldering fraternal conflict weighs heavy early on, but there's a method to this approach. A superabundance of symbolism, a mainstay in Russian storytelling, and references to powerful religious artwork, only adds to the visual buffet. One can't not be satisfied. It's simplicity lends to its extravagance.
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