20th Anniversary of The Return
June 25, 2003 was at the same time a joyful and tragic date in the history of the best, to date, film of Russian cinema - "The Return" by Andrey Zvyagintsev. On this day, a pre-premiere screening of the picture was scheduled, to which all those who were related to the creation of the picture were invited. And on the same day, news came of the death of Volodya Garin, a young actor who played one of the main roles in the film.
For Andrei Zvyagintsev, the film "The Return" was the first full-length feature film. Having received an acting education in 1990, Zvyagintsev quickly became disillusioned with the theater and his profession. For 10 years after that, he filmed commercials. In 2000, the producer of the REN-TV channel, Dmitry Lesnevsky, invited Zvyagintsev to shoot three short stories for the 16-episode television series "The Black Room". Upon completion of work on the television series, Lesnevsky suggested that Zvyagintsev jointly shoot a full-length film. For both it was a debut.
For the implementation of this project, a script by Vladimir Moiseenko and Alexander Novototsky was chosen, which was called "You" and told about two men in their forties, named Archil and David, who in their New York apartment recall the events of their childhood. The authors wrote this script, as they say, "into the table", without much hope for its adaptation. For the filming of the film, little-known or completely novice actors were invited. A budget of 400 thousand dollars (about 700 thousand dollars today) was allocated for the implementation of the project. Mere pennies by the standards of modern cinema! Preparatory work went on for about two years. Finally, in the summer and autumn of 2002, the actual shooting of the picture was carried out for 50 days.
Dmitry Lesnevsky sent a cassette with the finished film to the organizing committees of three international film festivals. And from all three film festivals invitations to the competition program were received! As a result, in August 2003 the film was seen by guests and participants of the international film festival in Locarno (Switzerland). Zvyagintsev's film was nominated for the festival's main prize, the Golden Leopard. But this award went to the Pakistani film "Khamosh Pani خاموش پانی (Silent Waters)" by Sabiha Sumar. It is difficult to say how justified such a decision was: few people in Russia saw this film. If anyone has ever seen it. But, based on the fact that the total number of people who watched this film throughout Europe does not exceed 100,000 people, and the total box office was $ 7,384, we can conclude that the jury of the Locarno festival was guided solely by political motives. However, it can be considered a kind of consolation that the company of the "losers" of Zvyagintsev's film was a wonderful film by Kim Ki-duk “Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom 봄 여름 가을 겨울 그리고 봄 (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring)”.
But already on September 3, 2003 Andrey Zvyagintsev's film "The Return" was seen by guests and participants of the international film festival in Venice. At this film festival, the film "The Return" received several awards, including the highest - the "Golden Lion". After the film was shown, the audience applauded it standing for 15 minutes. And this despite the fact that, according to the observer of the British "Guardian" Fiachra Gibbons,
"But The Return's path to the Golden Lion could be blocked by what many critics are calling "a blatant piece of nationalist skullduggery" on the jury. With the organisers of the festival answering to the Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who was delighted when they declared that it would favour commercial films, there are fears the top prize will go to a homegrown movie to please Rome."
And the applicants for the "Golden Lion" from Italy in the competition program were as many as two: "Buongiorno, notte (Good Morning, Night)" by Marco Bellocchio and "Segreti di stato (Secret File)" by Paolo Benvenuti. True, both films were quite mediocre. But there was a real masterpiece in the competition program, albeit an American one - “21 grams” by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Still, the jury, chaired by 89-year-old Mario Monicelli, preferred the film of A.Zvyagintsev.
One of the most famous Russian film critics, Andrei Plakhov, told two stories in his review of the film. First:
"Allegedly, Silvio Berlusconi in a conversation with Vladimir Putin made a complaint: why the hell you took away two Golden Lions from us at once? In response, it sounded: "What have we got to do with it? Your Italians gave them away”. The largest Italian television corporation RAI, which financed the Bellocchio's movie, said that because of the vile decision of the jury RAI will boycott the Venice Festival."
Second: when Mario Monicelli, after the festival, was
“asked if he was afraid to lose his job, the jury chairman replied: “I’m eighty-nine years old, I have shot more than a dozen films. One more, one less - it doesn’t bother me anymore.”
Maybe these are legends, but maybe not.
In the same 2003, the film "The Return" received the "European Discovery" award from the European Film Academy. Yes, this is not the highest award. But compete with such masterpieces as “Dogville” by Lars von Trier and “Goodbye, Lenin!” by Wolfgang Becker, for a debutant of international film festivals, debutant in the field of filmmaking, and besides, a person without a director's education, is extremely complicated. This is why the already mentioned Fiachra Gibbons called the film of Andrei Zvyagintsev
"the most astonishing Russian debut since Andrei Tarkovsky's".
After the success of Andrei Zvyagintsev's picture at European festival venues, it was decided to submit "The Return" for an Oscar. But the American Film Academy did not even include the picture in the number of nominees. However, even before this nomination, Andrei Zvyagintsev expressed his skeptical point of view in an interview with Kommersant newspaper journalist Alexei Karakhan:
“Americans look at things differently. This film is not for the American public. It is too slow for them. There are too few events in it. for the American worldview. Americans are too trained on blockbusters, action movies, events, Schwarzeneggers. A thin layer may pay attention to him, but other people will pass the verdict, so I think."
However, in 2004 the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated Zvyagintsev's film for its Golden Globe Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category. This award, however, went to the Afghan film "Osama". And here, most likely, it was not without politics, since the Afghan film was financed by the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who is in opposition to the current Iranian regime. But the company of "relative losers" for Zvyagintsev's film turned out to be quite worthy: the already mentioned German film "Goodbye, Lenin!" by Wolfgang Becker and the Canadian picture "Les invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions)" by Denys Arcand.
However, it is possible that politics has nothing to do with it, but the point is that the American jury was simply unable to understand Zvyagintsev's film, as he predicted. Indeed, even the guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, gave "The Return" only 2.5 stars out of 4 possible and described it as
"a Kafkaesque story, in which ominous things follow one another with a certain internal logic but make no sense at all" .
That is, even the guru of American film criticism could not understand what turned out to be completely understandable to the figures of European cinema.
That's why Andrei Zvyagintsev had to explain through the newspaper The New York Times what he wanted to show in the film.
«"I wanted to remind people that biblical tales actually penetrate our lives," said Mr. Zvyagintsev, who turns 40 on Friday, when "The Return" opens in New York. "Because human beings don't change -- they face the same questions and are looking for the same answers today as they did centuries ago. What is love? What is sacrifice? Is love a matter of patting someone on the shoulder and speaking tender words, or of taking action, sometimes irreversible or fatal?""
However, according to Sergei Kudryavtsev, domestic film critics also did not greatly exceed mentally overseas film critics. In his review of the film “The Return” in 2007, Kudryavtsev wrote:
“Our critics have met “The Return” with restraint, and even with polite perplexity - why are foreign filmmakers going crazy?! Our critics are madly in love with the ordinary “Boomer” by Peter Buslov, praised to the skies and seriously compared with Shakespeare’s tragedies and Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”! If it went to the West, “Boomer” would be considered only a student’s copying of the losers of American cinema more than thirty years ago. "
Although, probably, Sergey Kudryavtsev exaggerated too much, speaking of restraint and polite bewilderment in relation to the film on his native land. After all, in 2004 the film was awarded the "Nika" and "Golden Eagle" awards - the main cinematographic awards in Russia. And - yes - in the same 2004, the French Film Academy nominated the film "The Return" for its Cesar Award. This award "The Return" did not get. But in this case, everything is quite understandable and deserved: the prize was awarded to Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River", and in the company of "losers" along with Andrei Zvyagintsev's film were "Gangs of New York" by Martin Scorsese and "The Hours" by Stephen Daldry.
As for the evaluation of Andrei Zvyagintsev's film "The Return" by ordinary moviegoers, firstly, the film grossed more than $4.4 million at the box office, which is 10 times higher than the cost of its production. For a Russian film, this is generally a rarity. Secondly, 68% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Andrei Zvyagintsev's film "The Return" according to FilmGourmand version was 9.069, which allowed it to take 151st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
Russian cinema (not to be confused with the Soviet!) is represented in the Golden Thousand by 13 films. Of these 13 movies, Andrei Zvyagintsev's picture has the highest performance, which serves as the basis for considering this film the best film in Russian cinema.
