The Banishment review
In 1918, Russian film maker, Lev Kuleshov, discovered a montage effect called the Kuleshov effect. What happens is that he just records an actor who maintains the same expression, edits it with different random images and later screens it to audiences who will review it. Despite maintaining a stone and emotionless face, the audiences are able to interpret so many things from the actor’s “acting” and they give him the thumbs up for his performance.
Hence, is the effect of the Kuleshov effect and hence is the case for critically acclaim Russian film maker, Andrei Zvyagintsev, second film, The Banishment. The movie is about a husband who has to go through a moral dilemma of exacting “just” punishment on his wife who claimed that she is pregnant with a child that is not his.
Very much like his debut, The Return, his films always have an air of mystery and a heavy dose of biblical references. The film plays off almost like an observational piece. Always maintaining a distance away from the characters and the subject. A lot of emotions are seen from the back of the character’s head or from a side profile or from two blocks away. It leaves me to wonder if the film maker is really trying to pull off a Kuleshov from start to finish.
To those who are familiar with his 2003 debut, The Return, Andrei is a film maker that demonstrates that his prowess is in subtracting and withholding. He carefully chooses how he wants to take away or suppress a scene in order to engage the audience. Shooting the back of the actor’s head whenever the scene calls for a lot of attention on his expression is one such technique. And yes, I understand for some that this can also get frustrating.
What I really like about this film is how it cleverly manages to draw a parallel between a biblical story of Mary being pregnant with the son of God and a woman who faces impending doom for being pregnant with a dubious child. The film makes very brutal juxtaposition of the two and even dresses up a doctor who is performing an abortion to look like a priest.
It is easy to tell a film that appeals to festivals like Cannes. For one thing, they are never easy films because they don’t service the audience. They leave a lot for them to interpret and analyze. Hence, films that can give you a good topic for an essay are usually damn appealing to Cannes.
As much as Andrei is a good director, he has forgotten that by utilizing the Kuleshov effect too much doesn’t grant him a lot of recognition for his efforts. So it is no wonder, the Cannes only awarded this film with a best actor award.
