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thecargreencowboy
Reviews
Vozvrashchenie (2003)
Whats in the box?
The Return is beautiful, enigmatic, harsh, naturalistic, and captivating. A lot of the enigma comes from the films refusal to infer the fathers history and the
refusal to let the audience know what is in the box that he has returned to dig up. The film has obvious symbolic and abstract overtones, eg. viking death
ceremonies, the story of Abraham, and Freudian resentment and desire to
displace the father. I felt that the film balances the fathers desire to educate his kids into independent self-preserving adulthood, against his desire to convey the emotions of love on his children. In his stern lessons to his children he is very much the Soviet strongman. However, after his death, the children find the photo that he had been keeping of them as young children. They both
recognise that their mysterious, heroic and also hateful father did cherish them. The older child tellingly tells his younger brother to hide it. This is followed by them both shouting 'dad' at the sinking corpse, a thing that one of the children was reluctant to do when his father was alive. To me the box contains the
fathers inability to show his love for his children, and he ultimately passes this imprisonment of his emotions to his children at the end of the film. Compare the outward engine propelled boat journey with their returning one. The children have been given a stern anti-Ray Mears style lesson in survival, but it could be at the expense of repeating the acts of their father by locking their emotions in a box. However, all of this could be rubbish, as I have only seen the film once a couple of hours ago, and my opinion is still changing about the film. However, I
suppose that this is a sign of a good film as I can't stop thinking about it. Maybe I will write a different review on it tomorrow.
That Sinking Feeling (1979)
There must be more to life than commiting suicide!
I love this film, and it is such a shame that anything he did post local hero didn't capture any of this. How many films have a character trying to drown himself in a bowl of cornflakes, a police radio only used for ordering cream buns, a lad pretending to buy a television just to scav a ciggies. Lines like 'multiple social deprivation' actually make you laugh. Kids selling ciggies. A youngster boasting of his o-levels in front of a statue. A car which is not a car. It is funny without being patronising. Watch it, it is shown now and then on Channel five in the daytime.