On the heels of his award-winning 2003 feature debut The Return, filmmaker Andrei Zvyagintsev struggles to avoid the sophomore slump with this art-house crime drama concerning two brothers struggling to keep their lives together in the face of certain disaster. Soon after extracting a bullet from his brother's arm, Alex (Konstantin Lavroneko) relocates his family from the city to his father's old house in the countryside. As the family settles into their rustic existence, Alex's wife Vera (Maria
Bonnevie) reveals that she is pregnant by another man. Enraged by his wife's announcement, Alex consults with his brother and demands that Vera terminate the pregnancy. When the forced abortion goes horribly awry and Alex's brother suffers a severe heart attack, a confrontation with the man Alex believes to have seduced his wife send events quickly spiraling out of control. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
We will not reveal more of the plot in the hope that one day it will be playing in a theater near you . It is truly something to see; for among all the lives to be ruined it is a visual rhapsody.
If only the ravishing opening shot of Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Banishment was followed up with both beauty and something genuinely profound, then disappointment wouldn't be so palpable.
A movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.
Lumbering and beautiful, Zvyagintsev leaves few doubts that we're in the hands of a fledgling master: there's lots of striking visuals to keep you from itching for the exit as the leisurely running time unspools.
Though every shot is painstakingly framed and perfectly lit, the film fails at the human level. These people remain strangers throughout. There is nothing wrong with the performances but it's difficult to create empathy without intimacy.
Photographed with mesmerising clarity and power by Mikhail Krichman, and consciously evoking those found in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, they are the most compelling feature of this grindingly slow and self-conscious fable.
While the heavenly rays of the Almighty Himself could not have done a more exquisite job lighting the film, its beauty doesn't compensate for the sparse, slow and unrewarding story.
a timeless tragedy unfolds in slow motion - but the viewer's patience is rewarded with exquisite painterly images, some unexpectedly rapid developments and a truly bleak vision of human error and its consequences.
For now, the best that can be said about Zvyagintsev is that he seems like he could potentially be a master filmmaker someday, even if he's still not made a good movie.
A tone poem about loss, damaged masculinity, and betrayal, The Banishment is a visually arresting but dramatically flawed feature, representing an honorable (but no more) follow-up to the Russian director's 2003 stunning debut, The Return.
It beats me how Konstantin Lavronenko won over Javier Bardem's performance in No Country for Old Men but Izgnanie is still a strong film in every other department. And sure, I suppose unexpectedly leaping from one place to another, getting wrestled to the floor, and sobbing merits some sort of award. This film I'm sure
isn't for all tastes as throughout the running time there are Tarkovsky-influenced moments of hypnotizing beauty......
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