Return, The (Blu-Ray)

The Return (2003) is the stunning debut
feature of Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Loveless), which won the Golden Lion for Best Picture, as well as the Best First Film award, at the Venice Film Festival. Young brothers Andrei (Vladimir Garin) and Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) have grown close in a household their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) abandoned. But when they least expect it, the man the boys have never known returns. Eager and bewildered, Andrei and Ivan join this mysterious stranger for a week-long fishing trip. As they travel deeper into the Russian wilderness, their journey devolves from vacation to boot camp, turning into a violent test of wills. Disturbing, tender and transcendent, The Return’s skillful marriage of psychological complexity and mythic imagery effortlessly evokes the watershed films of Andrei Tarkovsky.