Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Return

At the Silk Screen on Wednesday we saw Zvyagintsev's 'The Return' a tale of the arrival, out of the blue, of a husband and father after 12 years absence. You never find out why he was away and the story follows a trip as he takes his sons to the sea in Northern Siberia. Lots of things are unexplained and the viewer ends up almost as puzzled as the teenage children. The Observer review is here, one review commented on the resemblance to Alfonso Cuarón's Y tu mamá también - a long secretive road trip to a beach -I picked up on that but, for me, the larger similarity was to Io non ho paura (and here's that film's wikipedia page), its fascination with nature, great skyscapes especially clouds and the wind in the trees, not to mention children on an edge of adult events they just didn't understand. I was put off by one of the committee's quick summary, a week before the showing, the reality was very worth while! Here's the trailer:

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