IMDb > Izgnanie (2007)
Videos (see all 2)
Izgnanie (2007) -- Sinematurk - Trailer (Flash)

IMDb Holiday Movie Guide

Overview

User Rating:
7.6/10   1,522 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 17% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
William Saroyan (book) and
Artyom Melkumian (screenplay) ...
more
Contact:
View company contact information for The Banishment on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
23 November 2007 (Sweden) more
Genre:
Tagline:
If you want to kill, kill. If you want to forgive, forgive.
Plot:
A trip to the pastoral countryside reveals a dark, sinister reality for a family from the city. | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
2 wins & 3 nominations more
User Comments:
Zvyagintsev creates a stark, grave allegory of marital and familial disintegration more (11 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Konstantin Lavronenko ... Alex
Aleksandr Baluyev ... Mark
Maksim Shibayev ... Kir
Maria Bonnevie ... Vera
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yekaterina Kulkina (as Katya Kulkina)
Yelena Lyadova ... Vera (voice)
Andrey Shibarshin ... Max
Dmitri Ulyanov
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Изгнание (Russia)
The Banishment (International: English title)
more
Runtime:
157 min | Canada:150 min (Toronto International Film Festival)
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Filming Locations:
Company:

Fun Stuff

Movie Connections:
Soundtrack:
Für Alina more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful.
Zvyagintsev creates a stark, grave allegory of marital and familial disintegration, 28 August 2008
7/10
Author: movedout from http://thescreenbug.blogspot.com

Andrey Zvyagintsev's "The Banishment" is a stark, grave allegory of marital and familial disintegration. The father, Alexander (Best Actor at Cannes 2007, Konstantin Lavronenko)—a slight, lithe, laconic character—faces an unconscionable choice midway through the film. His wife, Vera (Maria Bonnevie), is a quietly tired mother masking a great deal of uncertainty behind pained eyes and faded beauty. Their young children, Kir and Eva, sense that a storm is brewing. This is Zvyagintsev's despairing poetry on the toxic disconnect between loved ones, surveying the limbo between the way things are and the way it should be.

"I'm pregnant, but it's not yours," Vera says unhurriedly, looking at her husband imploringly, eyes beseeching, as they lounge on the patio of Alexander's hilltop childhood home in the countryside, far away from the bleak greys of the industrial city where they reside. In that moment, Alexander realises the shift from mental to physical infidelity, less mindful to the betrayal he refuses to talk about than he is to his pride taking a dent. For the first time, the angular complexity of Lavronenko's face twists into a wordless rage that reveals his only response to the malaise rising within this marriage.

Alexander meets surreptitiously with his shady brother Mark (Aleksandr Baluyev), a criminal sort that needed stitching up and a bullet removed from his arm in the dead of the night just days before. Mark informs Alexander of a gun he left up in a dresser at their father's home. The moral landscape opens up here with two paths—to forgive or to kill. Both choices demand a hefty price, but remain acceptable as long as one is able to reconcile one's self with it.

Zvyagintsev creates a dreary mood piece, sustained with tension and a deeply burdening excavation of secrets and silence. There's an exploration of miscommunication here, not lies. The unspoken becomes just as virulent as falsities; the emotional estrangement between people becomes a source of dehumanising decay. The story of family is timeless in its essence, but intermittent, it's intrinsic morality however, is everything. Once again, the past has a way of rearing itself into the future. Just as Zvyagintsev saw profundity in the role of the Father in his mesmerising debut, "The Return", he sees the same here in the dynamics between parents and of spouses. The themes remain similar, but the religiosity of his enterprise is clunkier and more obtrusive.

While the acknowledged influence is Andrei Tarkovsky—nature and pastoral simplicity as it relates to the inner self and the interplay of religious iconography—the resonance of the camera is plainly Zvyagintsev's. The director, once again working with the cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, seems incapable of framing an ugly image: the open spaces of the golden countryside becomes stupefying and the creaky house itself hinges on a chasm, a solitary wooden bridge is the sole connection to a world outside the confines of family. As the narrative bends and folds, so does Zvyagintsev's virtuosity with visual chicanery—images and shots blend into one another, revealing the webs of space and time.

For all its technical poise, Zvyagintsev's story lacks the emotional veracity of his debut. From each shot, right down to its script, everything is so precisely composed that the film becomes antiseptic beneath the tragedy by justifying its theoretical banality with intense symbolism and inorganic actions. Characters have weight but no reality—they seem becalmed, even unaffected—they are ideas acted upon, props for a rambling parable and dangerously on the verge of evoking ennui. But in spite of its inherently languorous sermon, Zvyagintsev tackles the film with the cinematic prose of epic literature by enveloping the film with an aura of solemnity and disquiet.

Was the above comment useful to you?
more (11 total)

Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Izgnanie (2007)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
any theaters in America? also DVD? stejahen
Biblical references? snowbart
What was Vera's problem??? syerov
Spoiler! - Only for the ones who'd already seen the movie. batz_yarok
Ignore the reviewers jiminy80
Harvest song at the end? projektor-1
more

Recommendations

If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
- - - - -
The Kite Runner La guerre est finie Breakfast on Pluto Bes vakit The Bad and the Beautiful
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
Show more recommendations

Related Links

Full cast and crew Company credits External reviews
News articles IMDb Drama section IMDb Russia section
Add this title to MyMovies

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.