Synopsis
The Banishment (2007) is Andrei Zvyagintsev's second feature, a slow-burning Russian drama you can watch online on iFILM. It draws on William Saroyan's novel The Laughing Matter, reshaping it into a story about a marriage that one confession quietly destroys.
Alex brings his wife Vera and their two children to the rural house where he grew up. Late one night, with the kids asleep, Vera tells him she is carrying a child that isn't his. No shouting follows. Konstantin Lavronenko — who took the Best Actor award at Cannes for this role — plays a husband who answers with a stony, lengthening silence and decides for himself what to do next. Alexander Baluev and Maria Bonnevie hold the other corners of a triangle in which almost nothing is spoken aloud.
Cinematographer Mikhail Krichman frames the whole thing around emptiness and light: scorched fields, cold rooms, takes with nowhere to hurry. The film asks for patience and repays it, growing into one of the most restrained statements on guilt and marriage in 2000s Russian cinema. It rewards viewers who like heavy, unexplained, deliberate films. Stream The Banishment (2007) online on iFILM.
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