The Return

Zvyagintsev's The Return struck me as rather odd. At the end I felt like I was trying to pull all the loose ends together to try and find the meaning in the whole charade. Zvyagintsev may have intentionally led me to these feelings. I felt just as lost, confused, and scared as Ivan and Andrey.

Zvyagintsev says that it's impossible for any serious Russian director to be able to avoid Tarkovsky and that is blatantly demonstrated in The Return. Since recently watching three other Tarkovsky films, The Return could have just as easily been directed by Tarkovsky as it was Zvyagintsev. The parallels were innumerable. From the scenic shots, to their views on nature, to the filming of them running through the woods of long, lean trees, to the continual use of water, or the overall message I recieved from the film. It was unbelievable!

The mother, and grandmother, seemed to demonstrate some of the unusual detachment the father demonstrated. She believed that it would be completely fine to allow her two young sons to leave with their father whom they haven't seen in twelve years. She is unusually casual at dinner and seems to have grown far apart from the boy's father.

The father seemed like he would have had a scarred past. He seemed to have trouble controlling his usual instincts when it came to handling his children. Instead of considering them precious, he treated them as if they were any one of his other friends. He did show bits of compassion but these seemed quite spread apart. In the end, the boys were able to survive because of the few days guidance provided by their father. I thought this was an interesting spin near the end of the film. I didn't understand why his father choose to bring his sons along on his "mission." That part of the film seemed completely irrelevant especially considering he was going to send the boys home after they were in the diner.