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The Return Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 106 minutes Studio: Kino International Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-10-19 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 "Haunting" There is something about this movie that sticks with you long after you have watched it. Is it the way the story starts? The way it ends? The way your primary expectations are not met, and yet you find something else that you didn't expect? Hard to say, but it eventually matters very little. You are moved, you are disturbed, and you keep thinking about it... It beats those blockbusters that you forgot five minutes after you stepped out of the movie theater by a long shot. I personally love movies where I am unable to predict anything. How refreshing and disturbing! It is a movie made by a Russian director, with outstanding Russian actors (the kids!), but there's nothing "Russian" about the story. It is a "universal" story of a father returning to his wife and children after a twelve-year unexplained absence and taking his two sons - to whom he is a perfect stranger since he left when they were very little - on a fishing trip. From then on, "unexpected" is the guideline and you hold your breath. What is going to be revealed? What is going to happen? How will the three characters deal with their new relationship? You'll have to watch to find out... The photography is beautiful, and the score at times adds real power to the images. A must-see movie for cinema buffs, not for the average "movie goer". "Suspense though never sure why" This is a great movie. A father returns after a twelve year unexplained absence. His two sons--who really don't know him aside from an old photograph want to go on a fishing trip. Along the way--the father reveals his darkside-still maintaining the allegiance of his elder son--but quickly turning his younger son against him. Then a deadline is set--which both sons fail to keep and the father rages against the elder son-leading to a confrontation and disaster. While parts of this "mystery" are never explained--what was in the trunk the father dug up? Why was he missing for 12 years? Why does he refuse to eat fish? What's the cause of his "drill sergeant" like attitude towards his sons? The movie is still one of the best--remiscent of Ingmar Bergman. Beautiful photography, excellent acting, a suspenseful story and an unusual soundtrack all combine to make this dvd outstanding. In Russian with Englsih sub-titles. "Brilliantly Speculative Cinema of Father's Return..." Communication brings people closer, as shared information removes obstacles such as guessing and assumptions. For example, if a person says, "I am scared." People know that the person is scared and it offers an opportunity for people to help the person overcome the fear in one way or another. Thus, communication also becomes the foundation upon, which education and enlightenment rest. If communication perished, enlightenment and knowledge would see their final days because the next generation would never receive the information from previous generations. This displays why communication and why language is so essential for human existence. The Return illustrates a returning father and his inability to communicate, which will leave the audience in a cerebral no man's land guessing and concocting their own assumptions. The director Andrei Zvyagintsev opens the film by a pier where a large diving tower is located. Some young teenagers are jumping from the tower while Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov), one of the younger kids, does not jump as her fears height. His friends and his older brother Andrey (Vladimir Garin) leave him on top of the diving tower whimpering in fear while the cold sea breeze brushes his body. This leads to a situation where some of Ivan's friends call him a coward, which he denies. Ivan ends up in fight with his brother, and he runs home to tell his mother while she simply states, "Don't wake your father." Flabbergasted the two boys look at their mother, when she says that their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) is at home. These two boys have not seen their father for over a decade, and now he has returned for whatever reason. The first thing the father has decided to do is to take the two boys on a fishing trip; however, the trip turns out to be something completely different than what the kids had in mind. Throughout the trip, the father is abusive and rough with Ivan and Andrey. However, besides this the audience has to follow a trail of suggestive ideas, which leaves the viewer with mere assumptions. Several reviews have pinpointed this speculative atmosphere in the film that the father in the film generates through his persona, as he never provides a motive to his actions. Some reviews have suggested that he is a crook out to recover some old loot while others have proposed that the father tries to teach his two sons to become men, as their upbringing has lacked a male role model. It does not really matter what the audience thinks, as all ideas can be true. What seems to matter is the father's inability to communicate with his two sons, as he often leaves them confused, hurt, and withdrawn. Cleverly, Zvyagintsev uses the mise-en-scene in the film, which helps create the tentative milieu. The many majestic shots expand the viewer's mind in several directions, as they provide the audience an opportunity to ponder the insignificance of the character's identity. This enhances the ominous tension shaped between the children and the father, which might lead the audience's mind in a negative and darker direction of the father's intentions. The camera filter also plays an important role in producing a negative atmosphere, as it boosts the emotional distance between the father and the boys. The highly speculative atmosphere that Andrei Zvyagintsev generates through his film suggests the notion of poor communication and highlights the importance of good communication. Communication is also an essential part of cinema, as cinema is visual storytelling that can use dialogue and other auditory signals to promote a story. Regardless of the story's outcome, the audience learns a threefold lesson through the film about the importance of language and communication. The most obvious lesson is in regards to the boys' confusion and pain in the story due to the father's poor communication. The second lesson that Zvyagintsev teaches the audience is through the viewer's own assumptions and guesses based on the lack of information. The final lesson of communication that the film provides is in regards to our short existence on earth, which suggests that one should seize the day when the chance presents itself. Ultimately, the audience can reflect over the pictures at the end in the film, as these images provide several different ideas. This is the beauty of art, as it leaves the audience with their own interpretations and thoughts, which maybe could lead to a revelation of some sort helping people with proper communication. "Captivating" I'm looking forward to sharing this movie with students in my university-level Russian Masterpieces course (books and movies). "Epic Beer Commercial" "The Return" is a tediously slow epic whose lack of plot detail is apparently being received as profundity. There are some excellent performances in the small cast. Ivan Dobronravov in his first picture plays Ivan the younger son who rejects and is suspicious of his father. The one scene on the beach where he tells his father that he wants to love him and then tears off in the opposite direction is enough to rip your heart out & hand it to you on a platter. The older brother Andrei played by Vladimir Garin does an excellent job as well. Perhaps in Russia people have more time to take or life seems more relaxed. Director Andrei Zvyagintsev takes a very long time to communicate very little. The father is absent for 12 years and returns with no apparent explanation by the mother other than, "He's back." The boys think he was a pilot, but why didn't he ever come home? The subsequent clandestine trip with the boys leads one to believe that the father was a criminal, but why take the boys on this trip? Apparently, the brusque father who can abandon a son on a bridge to suffer a drenching rainstorm does also love the boy as he shouts "Vanya" as he tries to scramble to save the boy. Natalya Vdovina as the mother seems alternately maternal and sleazy. One wonders why she'd allow a husband gone for 12 years to suddenly take the boys out on a trip without her. In the end, as the dysfunctional family collapses, I wondered why so little care is given to these young sons. Perhaps like an epic beer commercial, why ask why. The answers are not given and the questions are less than profound. The DVD offers almost no extras. So if you're a very patient viewer or one whose life is going so fast that you're looking for a way to slow down, this is the film that will do it for you. While some were greatly moved by this film, I was utterly bored. Taxi!