While Konstantin Lavronenko does give an intriguing performance, it's really the film as whole, all pieced together like a puzzle half assembled, that works majestically.

| Jul 25, 2019

[Director Andrei] Zyvagintsev's beautiful compositions [brings] out uncanny aspects of natural setting.

| Oct 12, 2018

The first two-thirds are an extraordinary slow burn that provides ample time to admire Mr. Zvyagintsev's talent with the wide frame.

| Jan 18, 2018

For all of its ingenuity, and the incredible, drawn-out events that conclude the film, there is a high risk that this film alienates its audience.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 8, 2011

The Banishment is so obviously the work of an exceptional film-maker that you can't deny its power, ambition and ability to keep you watching.

| Aug 15, 2008

The film works mostly in ellipses and silences, establishing a solemnly mysterious mood.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2008

There are prize-winning performances, seductive landscapes and hallucinatory shots of empty urban streets and shadowy interiors.

| Aug 15, 2008

Lumbering and beautiful, Zvyagintsev leaves few doubts that we're in the hands of a fledgling master: there's lots of striking visuals to keep you from itching for the exit as the leisurely running time unspools.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2008

Though every shot is painstakingly framed and perfectly lit, the film fails at the human level. These people remain strangers throughout. There is nothing wrong with the performances but it's difficult to create empathy without intimacy.

| Aug 15, 2008

Photographed with mesmerising clarity and power by Mikhail Krichman, and consciously evoking those found in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, they are the most compelling feature of this grindingly slow and self-conscious fable.

| Aug 15, 2008

I can't help feeling that this is a slight misstep from this director, and can't decide whether his film has at its centre a mystery or a muddle.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2008

While the heavenly rays of the Almighty Himself could not have done a more exquisite job lighting the film, its beauty doesn't compensate for the sparse, slow and unrewarding story.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 15, 2008

A frustrating, oblique and portentous endurance test.

| Original Score: 2/6 | Aug 15, 2008

It feels more like a cin dissertation designed to showcase Zvyagintsev's appreciation of the medium than an original piece of cinema.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2008

a timeless tragedy unfolds in slow motion - but the viewer's patience is rewarded with exquisite painterly images, some unexpectedly rapid developments and a truly bleak vision of human error and its consequences.

| Aug 7, 2008

For now, the best that can be said about Zvyagintsev is that he seems like he could potentially be a master filmmaker someday, even if he's still not made a good movie.

| Original Score: 29/100 | Jan 10, 2008

We will not reveal more of the plot in the hope that one day it will be playing in a theater near you . It is truly something to see; for among all the lives to be ruined it is a visual rhapsody.

| May 24, 2007

A tone poem about loss, damaged masculinity, and betrayal, The Banishment is a visually arresting but dramatically flawed feature, representing an honorable (but no more) follow-up to the Russian director's 2003 stunning debut, The Return.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | May 18, 2007

If only the ravishing opening shot of Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Banishment was followed up with both beauty and something genuinely profound, then disappointment wouldn't be so palpable.

| May 18, 2007

A 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.

Full Review | May 18, 2007