The Return

Dear Filmmakers of Russia: Is it impossible for Russia to produce a non-symbolic film? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm as big a slavophile as the next girl, but people, lighten up on the overbearing "mysterious" symbolism. It's alright to move on from Tarkovsky, really it is. I wouldn't judge you if you just wanted to make a little romantic comedy, a cheesy romp through Petersburg. It could have your bad Russian pop songs, and a culminating romantic episode at, say, a park along the Neva. It could be about a boy falling in love with a girl, and there would be no drawn out metaphors for the state, or intense psychoanalytic character studies. Wouldn't it be nice to see the fun side of Russia once in awhile?

Apparently not so much. I fear that it is actually impossible for any Russian film, at least those released in the United States, to not be metaphorical in every imaginable sense. Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return, which opened stateside months ago, is no exception to this rule. The movie concerns a father, missing for twelve years, who suddenly comes back to take his two children with him on a "fishing" excursion through the Russian countryside. Gee, this doesn't seem like it will inevitably end in disaster at all.

There is limited dialogue in the movie, and very limited character development--it's largely about watching the interactions of confined characters (an interesting setup, certainly). Visually, the film is lovely, its palette largely composed of tones of slate blue, dark greens, and slightly overexposed film. I'm unclear on whether or not it was shot on DV, but it has a spectacularly grainy quality to the film that, at least in this circumstance, I very much appreciate.

The problem? The movie makes no sense. It's one of those movies that seems enamored with its ability to drop red herrings (or possibly even real clues) and not pick them up again later. Why not pick them up again later? It's because nothing matters in this movie; the actions are fairly inconsequential because the movie is little more than a veiled allegory told as a simplistic fairy tale. Despite the fact that I know virtually nothing about this movie, I remain convinced that the entire plot is an allegory for the Russian state post-Communism. This is why the film cares so little about piecing together its clues--it is about a mood thrown over the country, not about minute details.

More problematic, perhaps, is the composition of the film. It becomes at times overcomposed to the extreme. Incredibly long, lingering, perfectly aligned shots dominate the film. They're beautiful to look at it, but they do little to further the plot, and at their worst, prove to be distracting to the overall mood. And for a movie set in the chaos of the lonely wildnerness, the composition is too formal and mannered to truly work as it should.

I have no problem with the symbolic, or the making of allegorical films. It just seems as though the director of The Return had a beautiful vision (and very talented cinematographer) and decided it would be convenient for him to make it super duper mysterious while he was at it. That I find annoying; that is my problem with the film. It tries far too hard to place itself in some sort of national cinematic tradition, and in doing so , creates a very stilted vision of what it attempts to show (whether that is actually Russia, or simply the story of a father and his sons).