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The Banishment (2007)

Time Out rating

Average user rating

9 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Not even breathtaking photography and a remarkably precise and poetic approach to mise-en-scène can save Andrey Zvyagintsev’s marathon follow-up to his 2003 Golden Lion-winning ‘The Return’ from being a frustrating, oblique and portentous endurance test. A slow-burning story of a couple who move with their kids to the countryside (Russia, we assume, although it’s shot largely in Moldova) only for marital infidelity and its attendant crises to emerge early on, ‘The Banishment’ offers all too few moments of real and engaging emotional intensity.

The elements are all in place – superb acting (lead actor Konstantin Lavronenko won the best actor prize at Cannes in 2007), masterly camerawork, an ethereal score, ghostly locations – but the problem is that the story never really connects. Still, there are many scenes to enjoy as Zvyagintsev demonstrates an obvious debt to Tarkovsky in the movement of his camera and his desire to stress the thematic over the narrative. But however admirable the film’s sense of an enveloping nightmare may be, it’s impossible not to be put off by a story that’s increasingly confusing and, ultimately, psychologically incomprehensible.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2008-08-12 11:14:19

Time Out London Issue 1982, August 14-20, 2008

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User reviews of this film

Phil Ince said...

Posted on Oct 09 2009 14:19 I'm puzzled by your remarks, Dave. You didn't understand the film but it clearly is possible "not to be put off by a story" that isn't "increasingly confusing and, ultimately, psychologically incomprehensible". I didn't find it confusing or incomprehensible". The facts were there. It seems you missed them. That's not a sin, Dave, but it is a shortcoming in a film review that's as absolute in it's position as yours was.

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dave calhoun said...

Posted on Oct 05 2009 15:37 QPR Olly / Phil Ince - Thanks for your comments. Funnily enough, other posters elsewhere tend to call for my resignation/sacking when I do - intentionally or inadvertently - reveal the ending or late reveal (call it what you will) of a film. Seems you can't win. What's true is that this is a film apparently and partly about infidelity for quite a while and I've reported it as such. You both, however, have put your own desire to look 'right' beyond the pleasure of those who haven't seen the film yet. I'll leave others to judge who took the right approach to commenting on the film.
Thanks
Dave

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QPR Olly said...

Posted on Oct 05 2009 15:01 Phil Ince -(Comments 2 & 3) - eloquently and succinctly nails Dave Calhoun, the useless Time Out reviewer who should resign or be sacked.
SHE WAS ILL,Dummy.

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Nomdeplume said...

Posted on Apr 23 2009 09:43 Sheer cinema. Beautiful.

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Phil Ince said...

Posted on Aug 28 2008 11:41 Try again. The Time Out reviewer can't have been watching very attentively because there is no marital infideltiy in thisn film. A flashback at the end of the film clearly reveals that the wife has had a breakdown. When she tells her husband that the child she is pregnant with is not his, she isn't telling the truth. It is her alienation from her husband and her depression talking. She is killed by the actions and inaction of the the husband, his brother and the husband's friend who do nothing to relieve her troubles because they do not seem to care about or udnerstand them. There does seem to be something amiss with or missing from this film but the heart of it isn't obscure. The wife was ill.

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Phil Ince said...

Posted on Aug 26 2008 16:59 The Time Out reviewer can't have been watching very attentively because there is no marital infideltiy in thisn film. A flashback at the end of the film clearly reveals that the wife has had a breakdown. When she tells her husband that the child she is pregnant with is his, she isn't telling the truth. It is her alienation from her husband and her depression talking. She is killed by the actions and inaction of the the husband, his brother and the husband's freind. There does seem to be something amiss with or missing from this film but the heart of it isn't obscure. The wife was ill.

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robin said...

Posted on Aug 14 2008 23:08 very good

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Will said...

Posted on Aug 13 2008 20:02 "breathtaking photography and a remarkably precise and poetic approach to mise-en-scène"
As well as being highly poster-quotable, this quote should surely elevate the film above the sub-mediocre 2 star rating that this site seems to reserve exclusively for the terminally insipid.

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Anry said...

Posted on Aug 12 2008 17:09 The story is not slow-burning neither the film is an endurance test. If you like, the way film’s duration is 2h40m is just to show the story in its full beauty; this is not a coca and popcorn type of movie. This is a more like French Champaign story; it is a slow way of enjoying the beauty of nature and human psychology.
Just take a break, relax and sip your Champaign.
Don’t even try to eat your crisps, there are a lot of incredibly beautiful silence in the film and you will kill the silence with those crunchy noises.
If you want, this film is a way to spit upon the Hollywood standard of script writing where the first action has to happen during the first 20 minutes.
In this film on the 20th minute only butterflies fly.

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