The Return

Today, we watched the film, The Return, directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev. The film was quite unique. To me, the whole film seemed to be about photography. Not only did it have a lot of photos in it, it seemed that even filming was based around photography. A lot of the shots extended on even after the "action" had left the scenes. For example, when the car would drive by, the camera would follow it, but even after the car was out of sight, the camera would stay and wouldn't move on to the next scene. It would pause there for a moment and then move on. The color blue comes to mind when thinking back on this film. The sky was almost always blue, as with the water. Time to time it would turn gray as it rained a lot in the film. 

I would not of guess that this film was made any where near St. Petersburg. Upon leaving the town where the boys lived, the towns get smaller and smaller and then there are no towns at all and its just the three of them. The island was quite beautiful if I do say so myself. The beaches looked untouched and fresh, as did the forests. The area was far from the film Brother, which we watched yesterday. Brother was based IN St. Petersburg. There was a constant source of people and buildings in Brother.

The mother seemed to be very caring of her boys. In the start after Ivan doesn't jump, she comes and comforts him and gets him down. When the father gets there, her attitude kind of drops off. She went from caring deeply about her boys to just letting them go without a fight or argument about there so called father taking them after being gone for 12 years. The building seems to be a normal living place. It seems to be "dorm" style like what we've seen in all the films.

The father is a tough one to describe. To me, he seems to be a negative character. He really doesn't have any manners towards either of his boys and is never really nice to them. He could, however, just not be use to having his kids around and treats them like he treats others where he lives or works. I still think that he knows the difference between the two though. Andrey seems happy throughout the whole movie, til the father dies. Ivan just gets picked on the whole movie. I don't think he was happy once in the movie.  Andrey really is interested in his father and does whatever he asks unlike Ivan. Ivan doesn't want to eat his soup and always wants things his way which he never gets unless he takes things into his own hands. I really didn't see a difference in the way the boys acted towards each other. Ivan makes fun of Andrey for sucking up to their father, but I did not see anything other than that. 

It never really shows what the fathers goals were on the trip. The box he retrieves is the only thing that is really brought up. We never do find out what happens to this case or whats in it. I really wanted to see what it had in it! Who knows what could be in a chest in a house like that. I also didn't see a reason to bring his sons along, unless the box had something to do with them. The box was never brought up again so I guess we never will know. 

The title, The Return, didn't really fit unless they were returning to the island again. It could also be about their father returning and coming back into their lives again. The boys didn't seem affected right away after their fathers death. I thought for sure we would see some crying after, but we never saw any reaction until the boat sank with their father still in it. 

Overall this film was quite good and I really enjoy the scenery in it. It left you hanging a little at the end, but I still enjoyed it.