The Return (1/29/19)

     We learned in class that this director took a little influence from Tarkovsky, now while I am not sure if I saw every nod and reference to him what stood out to me as a sort of tribute to him are the following. For starters the mother character looks visually like the mother from Tarkovsky’s Mirror but not only that she has the same sort of depiction on screen as well. In the scene where the two boys run home to find their father has returned she is facing away from the camera with a cigarette in hand, a callback to when the narrator’s mother in Mirror sits on the fence and waits for her husband to return. There are interesting parallels between the two films it almost seems to me that The Return is almost what could have been in Mirror. This sounds odd but for example, the scene in Mirror when Ignat flips through the art book out of boredom in the apartment is recreated in The Return but it is for a different purpose this time and it is in a different context. While Ignat is alone, there are brothers flipping through the book in The Return, it is not done out of boredom but out of determination, an attempt to figure out if the man in the bed is truly their father. I found this difference interesting perhaps it’s a suggestion that there is less boredom and curiosity when you have a brother or a friend with you as the younger usually follows in the footsteps of the older making their curiosity dwarfed, and their boredom dashed as they always have someone to be with. Also it is interesting that in this film the Father did return and it was a source of much excitement and action in the film, but in Mirror it is only mentioned briefly that their father never returns. The Return kind of shows the differences in a life when there is a companion and a father, but with a more tragic twist.

     The other thing that was interesting in regards to Tarkovsky and this film is the use of the elements. Whereas Tarkovsky has full control of the elements and uses them in a surreal and beautiful way, this director (Andrey Zvyagintsev) sort of lets them run wild and untamed in a equally beautiful but more oppressive way. For example, Tarkovsky has the strange the doctor command the wind, and he has the family and their neighbors sit and stare at the barn fire, every wet surface drips and melts with purpose. While in this film rain comes on in an instant and tramples down the already beaten down characters. Fire is nurturing but never focused on, earth is necessary for their food and wind blows naturally in all directions. I remember vividly one scene where a train drives one way, the car another, and the wind almost a third. Leaves blow as they do in real life, nature in this film has an emphasis on it but it is not controlled in any way, aside from the way that humans normally control elements. Water is depicted as rather beautiful though aside from the rain the shots of the ocean are all breathtaking while still a little bit scary and imposing.

     Aside from the Tarkovsky comparisons which were very interesting to me, I also overall really enjoyed this film. At first I got a little worried and that was because it seemed to be a little bit of a slice of life film like Boyhood or Mid 90’s and that was honestly a little bit of a red flag for me as I have an incredibly hard time getting into those. I was pleasantly surprised however that it almost turned into a survival film and I really enjoyed it. I really loved all the irony in the film, the irony of the younger brother being called the coward even though he was the one standing up to the father and the older brother thinking he was so cool but really, he was just kissing up and going along with it all. I’m sure that if it wasn’t for the younger boy in this film the father would still be alive, and the older brother would have just gone along with the abuse. I loved the shifting dynamics throughout the film especially at the end where the older brother takes on the watch and the axe which were items normally associated with the father. I liked the changing of seats both in the car and in the boat, I felt it all was done very well to show bonds and also to sort of show where people where looking up to. For example, in the car the older brother was in the front seat with the father, the father looked up to no one as his eyes were on the road, the older brother looked up to his father as his eyes were on him, and the boy in the back had no idea who to look up to so his eyes were out the window. This changes later on when the older brother shifts to the driver seat with his eyes ahead as his only role model was dead. I liked the stares in this film and the glances off into the distance, the use of the space in the frame, it felt like a real call back to the early psychological Russian films that we talked about. I even noticed a lot of reaching out of the frame which was something that I noted in the early silent films but then not in more recent ones.

     The scene early on at the dinner table really stuck out to me and for a few reasons. For one, in previous films we have watched the grandmother is usually the toughest and loudest person in the family, she doesn’t take crap from anyone, but yet in this film she was entirely quiet and I feel that that really made us fear the father as well, the children were too in shock to see this I feel so they remained enamored with him. I liked this scene as well as it showed it an important connection, the connection of child to parent. We see the mother wince as she drinks and we hear Ivan (the younger) say that he does not like it, they are related, we know this earlier when she waves him from his fear of heights, but not it is reinforced that this is a bond that can withstand the intrusion of an outside character. While Andrey the younger immediately falls for the trap of his father with his car and booze and money. I felt this scene was very important, another scene that really stood out to me was the scene where they were looking for the diner. It was really interesting to me as it put the idea in my head that eating in this film was related to females. For example, we know the mother and grandmother made the meal we saw before, in this scene the father ogles a woman passing by and then immediately claims he is hungry. Along with the Andrey gets directions from an older woman and there is an awkward interaction with the waitress at the restaurant. I thought this was an interesting connection to put into the film, even later when they eat at the fire I feel like this is feminine too as it relates to their mother earlier as she smoked and made their meals there. We see Andrey go along with all this eating his father encourages but Ivan is always against it, he doesn’t eat at the diner and he complains that they should be making more of a dish when they are cooking at the fire like soup or something, this furthers his connection he has with his mother.

     Overall I really enjoyed this film, I thought the tone of it mixed with the music and the tragic story really hit hard. I had a some weird thoughts of The 400 Blows while I watched this, I think because of the depiction of the ocean, and the sort of renegade children. This thought became even more interesting as the film ended with various characters frozen in time in those photographs as The 400 Blows ends with a freeze frame, trapping him in his childhood and in his return to the sea and the feminine. I thought this film had some really interesting views on family dynamics and gender roles as a whole and I loved the way it presented the sort of slice of life family drama as more of a tragedy or even at times straight horror film. I can see this directors influence from other directors but I feel that this film is very much his own and he has a lot to say.