The Banishment (2008)

Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Return is one of the best films of the 00’s. In comparison with that film, The Banishment is a much weaker accomplishment that doesn’t hold up to the strong emotional and cinematic quality of the earlier film. For all its visual beauty, this does not come across as an expression of personal film-making the way The Return did. I would rather say that beauty here is used in a confused way that does not have much to do with what exactly the film is supposed to show. Somehow, the style of the film was a bit derivative: the use of long takes and meticulously composed images of empty landscapes started to feel calculating after a very short while. Slow camera movements don’t guarantee a good film. If the film doesn’t give us any hints about what we are supposed to see, if it doesn’t bring about a new way of seeing, no matter how meditative the images are, I’m afraid there is not much to learn from them. Afterwards, I was left with a hollow feeling: so that was it? Story-wise, there is not much to talk about, either. Tough guy with tough business – tough guy moves to the countryside with his family – tough guy is confronted with some news from his wife – tough guy acts in the only way tough guys can act – T-r-a-g-e-d-y. So: we’ve seen this before, haven’t we? I just couldn’t move beyond the story, I couldn’t make anything of it, and, more importantly, the style of the film and the story were intertwined in a way that seems keen on creating aesthetic impressions, but little more than that. I found myself both lost in details and unmoved by the turns of the story. Even the music feels contrived. Arvo Pärt's music is of course very beautiful but when used in this setting, his music was reduced to wallpaper. Which is not very nice if you happen to like this particular composition. And lastly, the structure of the film was muddled, too. The air of mystique created out of flashbacks and the holding back of information just didn't work. – Well, this was surely a disappointment.