Cannes. The Banishment.

"Back in 2003, Andrei Zvyagintsev won the Golden Lion at Venice for his superb debut, The Return and screening here was The Banishment [Izgnanie], his first film since that triumph, which plays like the wet dream of a Tarkovsky fanatic so much does it owe visually to Zvyagintsev's Russian forbear," writes Time Out's Dave Calhoun. "There are many moments and scenes to enjoy, and I admired the film's sense of an enveloping nightmare... But the overall effect of The Banishment is wearying and disappointing."

"Adapted from William Saroyan's The Laughing Matter, The Banishment's humorlessness is matched only by its bloated self-importance; every take clearly ended with the instruction 'Let's try that again, but with more brooding this time,'" sighs Mike D'Angelo at ScreenGrab over this Competition entry. "Also, attention, filmmakers of the world: The Arvo Pärt moratorium is still in effect!"

"The filmmaker apparently wants to annihilate the very prospect of failure, of sophomore jinx," suggests Emanuel Levy. "'There is a superstition that the second film is always a flop,' he said. 'Some call it a drop in energy. Vindication can only come from your work.' At 159 minutes, the movie requires extraordinary patience, and those inclined to surrender to the film's heavy mood and elusive rhythm are bound to experience a significant revelation.... The movie suffers from structural problems, but it's also gloriously baroque, the imagery so beautiful and evocative that some of the problematic qualities of the storytelling and characterization are mitigated by the imposing reach of the visual style. The tone is more difficult to decipher. Clearly not a realistic feature, its style is more in vein of a dark dream and a haunting reverie."

"If only the ravishing opening shot... was followed up with both beauty and something genuinely profound, then disappointment wouldn't be so palpable," writes Jay Weissberg in Variety.

"The Banishment starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm," begins Kirk Honeycutt hopefully. "Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose." Also in the Hollywood Reporter, Nick Holdsworth talks with Zvyagintsev.

For Allan Hunter, writing for Screen Daily, the film "confirms Zvyagintsev as a master of mood and composition but the ponderous pacing and epic running time make the film something of an endurance test."

Update, 5/19: Mary Corliss for Time: "It is truly something to see; for among all the lives to be ruined it is a visual rhapsody, attentive to every nuance in the spectacular land and foliage around the family home, following the lives within as meticulously as it traces the dramatic changes in weather — from clear day to torrential showers — in one of the longest, most intricate and beautiful tracking shots in cinema."

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Cannes @ 60. Index.

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Posted by dwhudson at May 18, 2007 12:11 PM