The Return
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Return |
| Original title | Возвращение |
| Country of production | Russia |
| original language | Russian |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Andrei Svyagintsev |
| script |
Vladimir Moiseenko Alexander Nowototzki |
| production | Dimitri Lesnewski |
| music | Andrei Dergachev |
| camera | Mikhail Krichman |
| cut | Vladimir Mogilesky |
| occupation | |
| |
The Return (Original title: Возвращение Woswrushschenije ) is a film drama from 2003 . It is the feature film debut of the Russian director Andrei Svyagintsev . The film, which was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival , is about a trip between two boys with their father, whom they had not seen for twelve years.
The road movie with a tragic outcome is divided into days. The story begins on a Sunday and ends the following Saturday.
action
Twelve-year-old Ivan and fourteen-year-old Andrej live with their mother and grandmother in a small Russian town. They haven't seen their father for twelve years; they only know him from a photo.
The brothers take part in a test of courage with others on Sundays, which consists of jumping from a high tower into the water. Ivan is afraid of heights and does not jump down. He stays on the tower for a few hours and is then called a coward by the others.
The father of the two boys surprisingly comes home on Monday. The reason for their return will not be revealed to them. He wants to take his grown up sons on a two-day trip. You should fish with him.
The journey begins on Tuesday. The father demands that the boys respect him and wants to be seen as an authority, assigns smaller tasks and disciplines their behavior. While Andrej, happy that his father has finally returned, obeys him and does everything to gain his appreciation and attention, Ivan resists by refusing to communicate and by going on a food strike. He distrusts the strange man and openly doubts his fatherhood.
The father treats the sons harshly. While on the phone after dinner in a restaurant in a city, he watches seemingly emotionless as his sons are attacked and robbed. He later finds one of the robbers and releases him to Ivan and Andrej, who do not want to take revenge. The father wants to break off the trip and send the boys home by bus, but has changed his mind. The trip should take longer than two days.
After spending the night in a tent outdoors, Ivan can only fish for a short time on Wednesday morning. On the further journey there were renewed conflicts with the father. After Ivan criticizes his father for leaving early and for the short fishing time, the boy abandons the boy on a bridge over a river (“Then go fishing!”). He only picks it up hours later and in pouring rain. Later the car is stuck in the mud and Andrej has to help free the wheels by pushing branches underneath. During a brief argument, the father beats Andrej so that he bleeds, but thereby makes him forget that Andrej is allowed to drive up and later drink vodka. Andrei learns to feel superior to his brother as an adult. Ivan, who had previously refused to face his father emotionally, now makes futile attempts to get closer to him and to recognize a person behind the hardened facade. He wants to know where his father has been for twelve years and why he has come back now, since he apparently did not need the family before, and what he wants from them now after so long. He doesn't get an answer to his questions, which leaves him in deep emotional distress.
On Thursdays the father goes to a lake with the sons. The three prepare a boat to go to an island in the lake. When the engine fails, the sons have to row under drill - another endurance test. They arrive on the island exhausted.
The following day - Friday - the father wants to show the sons the apparently uninhabited island. Andrei and the father go to a lighthouse, Ivan refuses because of his fear of heights. Later, the father leaves the two sons alone and digs up a box in a dilapidated house that contains a metal box. He brings the metal box to the storage area and hides it in the boat without his sons noticing. In the afternoon the children want to go fishing by boat. The father agrees, but sets a time limit of one hour. Ivan persuades Andrei to extend the drive while his father repairs the engine. The brothers are hours late: this leads to escalation. The father scolds Andrei and hits him. Ivan wants to take the blame, but is pushed aside by his father. Andrei continues to fuel the father's anger because he wants to pass the responsibility on to Ivan. The father threatens Andrei with an ax, whereupon Ivan takes up the knife and threatens him with death. Then his father threatens him in turn, Ivan is terrified, runs away and, despite his fear of heights, climbs onto the lighthouse, where he locks the hatch to the viewing platform. Ivan threatens to jump down from the tower. The father tries to reach the son over the outer wall, falls down and dies.
The brothers bring the father back to the boat. Here Andrej finds himself in the role of responsibility for the first time. He says what should happen, following the example of his father with relentless severity. This scene shows that the various endurance tests to which the father subjected the sons, triggered the initiation of Andrei to grow up. Ivan, who seemed to be the stronger of the two brothers in opposition to the harshness of his father, submits to his older brother after his father's death.
The brothers row silently back to the mainland on Saturday. You unload the boat and take a short break from exhaustion. In the meantime, the boat drifts away with the father and sinks together with the metal cassette. Ivan screams desperately for his father, whom he would have needed and to whom he has not come one step closer in the seven days of the journey from the well-protected civilization of his home into the wilderness of the Russian taiga.
It remains to be seen how the boys will find their way back home. In the car, Ivan finds a photo of the family from his earliest childhood, which his father kept. In the credits of the film you can see the photos Andrej took during the excursion.
Publications
The film was released in Russian cinemas on June 23, 2003. After receiving the main prize at the Venice Film Festival in September of the same year, it was shown at numerous other film festivals and opened in cinemas in numerous countries. With attendance figures of around 175,000 and box office earnings of around 780,000 euros, the film was a success in Italy, where it opened on October 23, 2003 under the title Il ritorno .
reception
Many critics made a comparison with the films of Andrei Tarkowski . Dave Kehr said in The New York Times that Andrei Svyagintsev was renewing the great tradition of mysticism in Russian film, such as in Andrei Tarkovsky's films. "The film [...] is both highly naturalistic and fantastically abstract and plays out its mystical themes through powerfully detailed characterizations (and remarkable depictions of the entire cast)." The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote that the film was "light in comparison with Tarkovsky's Films, free of false ambitions and whispering mysticism ”.
In Die Zeit , Andreas Busche praised The Return as a “mysterious, almost mystical film.” In doing so, Svjaginzew “takes the idea of the road movie ad absurdum. The internal and external movements of the figures no longer come together here. On the contrary: the forced march initiated by the father drives a wedge between the boys. The more desperate Andrej vies for the favor of his bossy father, the further he distances himself from his brother. "
On critic.de, Katharina Stumm says, “The conciliatory fishing trip becomes a rite of passage into adulthood for the children, in which they have to confront their previously created myths of fatherhood. Svyagintsev reflects the emotional scars of the sons in a barren landscape [ sic ], which, as it were, is inherent in a threat that expresses the mistrust of the one son in particular towards the patriarchal authority that suddenly appeared. "
In the intro, Sonja Eismann explains that "the strict, sparse film with its story of an Old Testament cruel father returning from nowhere to his two sons works universally, with his questions about authority and rebellion, religion and Christian mythology."
In 2016, The Return ranked 80th in a BBC poll of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .
Awards
The Return won the Golden Lion for Best Film and the CinemAvvenire Prize for Best First Film at the 2003 Venice Film Festival . He was also awarded twice at the FilmFestival Cottbus - with the special prize for the best director and the prize of the Ecumenical Jury . It was nominated as Best Foreign Language Film for a Golden Globe and as Best Non-American Film for the Bodil . The film won the Fassbinder Prize at the European Film Prize 2003 and the Tromsø Audience Award at the Norwegian Tromsø Internasjonale Film Festival 2004. The cameraman Michail Kritschman was also awarded the Chlotrudis Award .
Trivia
- Vladimir Garin drowned shortly after the filming was finished, on June 25, 2003 in Lake Osinovetskoye near Saint Petersburg , not far from where the film was set. Like his brother in the movie, he was encouraged to jump from a tower into the lake and probably suffered a cramp in the cold current.
Web links
- The Return - The return in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Information about the film
- "The return" at kinofenster.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lumiere
- ↑ Dave Kehr: A Frayed Family, on Ominous Fishing Trip . The New York Times, February 6, 2004 Original quote: The film […] is at once highly naturalistic and dreamily abstract, playing out its mythic themes through vibrantly detailed characterizations (and remarkable performances by the entire cast).
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 31, 2004
- ↑ Andreas Busche: Tell me where the men are . Die Zeit, April 1, 2004
- ↑ Katharina Stumm on critic.de
- ↑ Sonja Eismann on Intro.de ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Filmfestival Cottbus - Prize Winner 2003 ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at filmfestivalcottbus.de, accessed on August 4, 2013
- ↑ Tromsø Internasjonale Film Festival: Power to the people . Retrieved April 5, 2011 (Norwegian)
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/05/filmfestivals.film
