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The Return (2003 film)

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Vozvrashcheniye, also known as The Return, is a 2003 Russian film. The movie is released internationally in 2004.

Movie poster of Vozvrashcheniye

Story Overview

Two teenage Russian boys have their father return home suddenly after being absent for 12 years. The father takes the boys on a holiday to a remote island on a lake that turns into a test of manhood of almost mythic proportions.

Plot

Template:Spoiler In contemporary Russia, young brothers Ivan and Andrey have grown a deep attachment to each other to make up for their fatherless childhood. Both mother and grandmother live with them. Running home after a fight with neighborhood kids, the boys are shocked to discover their father has returned after a twelve year absence. With their mother's uneasy blessing, Ivan and Andrey set out on what they believe will be a fishing vacation with their taciturn father.

Though at first ecstatic to be reunited with the father they've only known from a faded photograph, the boys strain under the weight of their dad's awkward and increasingly brutal efforts to make up for a missing decade of parental supervision. Ivan and Andrey find themselves alternately tested, scolded, scrutinized and ignored by their father through a changing series of encounters and hardships.

As truck stops and cafés give way to rain-swept, primevally beautiful wilderness coastline, Ivan's doubts about his father give way to open defiance. Andrey's powerful need to bond with a father he's never known begins, in turn, to distance him from Ivan.

Ivan and his father's test of wills escalate into bitter hostility and sudden violence as the trio arrives at their mysterious island destination.

The dubious sanctuary of a rickety light tower, the desperate reassurance of a stolen knife, the cryptic allure of a rusting strong box and the fleeting safety of a hastily patched boat give evidence to the ultimately tragic conclusion of Ivan and Andrey's harrowing father and son journey and the heartbreakingly transitory nature of their reunion.

Symbolism

Some parts of the movie are not explained in detail as a way to leave open interpretations.

Political

  • The father returns after 12 years, which is approximately the time interval between the fall of Communism in the former Soviet Union in 1991 and the production of the movie in 2003.
  • The father, whose looks and demeanor is not too distant in looks from Stalin, seems to be the representative of the old communist system that demanded respect and hard work from the people (the sons).
  • Ivan seems to represent the new Russia, wary and distrusting of the old system.
  • Andrei seems to represent those torn between the two.
  • The story might be that the father (the old system) has abandoned the sons (the people, the country) and in the end it is the father (the old system) that is buried so the sons (the people) can move on with their lives.

Religious

  • The storyline is divided into seven chapters, each a different day, which resembles the biblical perspective of how the world is created; the movie's timeline begins on the christian Sabbath until the next six days of building the boys into men.
  • The father returns on Sunday, which is the day the Christ was resurrected.
  • The father's posture when he laid in bed, recalls Andrea Mantegna's painting "The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ."
  • An old family photo was found in a book beside an illustration of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.
  • The reference of fish, a symbol of Christianity, is palpable in the movie.
  • The reference of the Bible symbolising the diary kept by the boys.
  • The father lets a robber loose on Friday, which is the same to what happened during the last day of The Christ's dead.
  • When the father has fallen from the tower, he lies on the ground with his arms spread that resembles a Cross.
  • The father dies on Friday, which is the day The Christ died.
  • The father's death suggests that the sacrifice is made to deliver his sons to adulthood, which is similar to The Christ's sacrifice to deliver mankind from sins.

Main Cast

Crew

Awards

The following items are some of the awards that the movie has won. All awards are from 2003, unless otherwise noted.

Venice Film Festival

  • Winner, Golden Lion
  • Winner, Best First Film

European Film Awards

  • Winner, European Discovery of the Year

Palm Springs International Film Festival

  • Winner, Best Foreign Film

Golden Globe Award

  • Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film Russia


Trivia

  • Vladimir Garin drowned shortly after the end of shooting in the same lake where several of the picture's scenes were filmed.
  • Ivan Dobronravov bears a resemblance to the actor Hayley Joel Osment.
  • Andrey Zvyagintsev's father disappeared from his life when he was 6.
 

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