Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Stars Konstantin Lavronenko, Aleksandr Baluyev, Maksim Shibayev, Maria Bonnevie, Yekaterina Kulkina, Yelena Lyadova, Andrey Shibarshin, Dmitri Ulyanov
Written by William Saroyan, Artyom Melkumian
Certification UK 12A
Runtime 157 minutes
Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev
Alex is a man, a tumultuous Russian man, and he is moving back to the countryside together with his and wife and two children. As they leave the city they attempt also to leave behind the tension and troubles caused by Alex's aggression and his past misdemeanours. The move itself occurs during the credits and what follows is two and a half hours of brooding countryside images, occasionally bleached dry and sometimes locked in eternal natural motion, accompanied by strange sounds taken straight from Tarkovsky and a score that could accompany the surreal works of David Lynch. It's interesting and keeps you on edge, but my God it's also long and very very slow.
My short attention span aside, the unsettling feeling of this film is just the tip of the emotional iceberg carefully crafted by Zvyagintsev. The acting is superbly directed, with Lavronenko and Bonnevie exhibiting the incredibly difficult emotional tapestry of unspoken troubles remarkably effectively. What's more the bizarre contrast not only between the wide open spaces of the country and the confines of the house itself, but of the public veneer of the family and starkly aggressive private comments such as "If you're going to kill her, kill her; if you're going to forgive her, forgive her" provide a real ominous feel that drags you to a dark conclusion slowly and tortuously.
The overall array of characters, however, leaves something to be desired. The core of the film lies in the simmering tensions between the aggressive and suspicious Alex and his awkward and somewhat unsettled wife. The children play out their ordinary lives with an exaggerated naiveté which is only occasionally punctuated by depth or insight, and subsidiary characters often feel like they are included only to advance the plot or explain away unusual developments rather than enrich the absorbing array of emotions on display here: a fault that is somewhat surprising for a film of such length.
But for all its faults, The Banishment feels different from a lot of arthouse films around. With all of the carefully chosen audio visual techniques deployed and its audacious reliance on an almost imperceptible build up of tension, it's either a work of genius or a painfully slow and pretentious film. I am personally edging slightly towards the former, but have real sympathies for those who disagree.