Between his Golden Lion-winning debut, The Return, and his recent Cannes triumph Elena, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev made Banishment, an absorbing drama about a family who travels to their countryside home, where a painful secret threatens to destroy their very foundation: the wife is pregnant with another man’s child.
Wielding the simple, spare power of an Old Testament tale, Banishment expertly explores guilt and morality, anchored by Konstantin Lavronenko’s haunted performance, which won him the Best Actor prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. A gorgeous widescreen film meant for the big screen, Banishment will at last receive its long-overdue Los Angeles premiere.