The Banishment (, Izgnanie) is a 2007 Russian psychological drama film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. The film is a loose adaptation of The Laughing Matter, a 1953 novel by Armenian-American writer William Saroyan. It stars Konstantin Lavronenko and Maria Bonnevie.
The film premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. Lavronenko won the Best Actor award at the festival. It was released in Russian cinemas on 2 October 2007. The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Plot
In the film's opening scene, Mark comes to Alex's house for help removing a bullet from his arm. Mark is concerned about the dangers of going to a hospital because of his criminal affiliations and the police inquiries which would result from going to a public hospital. Mark recovers and in the following days, Alex brings his wife Vera and two children for a trip to his childhood home in the countryside. The tranquility of the countryside is broken when Vera tells Alex that she is pregnant, but that this baby is not his. The rift between the couple grows but the two try to keep up appearances in the presence of their children and the old friends that visit them.
Alex is unsure about what to do and turns to his brother Mark for advice. On the way to meet Mark at the train station, Alex's son Kir reveals that Alex's young friend Robert was at their house one day while Alex was away for work. Alex concludes that Robert is the baby's father. Vera feels estranged from her husband, and fears that Kir will follow in Alex and Mark's criminal footsteps.
In the end, Alex forces Vera to have an abortion hoping they will be able to re-build their relationship and save their marriage once this unborn baby is out of the way. While their children are at a friend's house, he gets Mark to use his criminal connections to find a doctor to perform the procedure in their own house. After the abortion Vera commits suicide by overdosing on pain relieving medication. Alex and Mark rush the funeral formalities as gossip spreads quickly in the countryside. After returning home from the funeral parlour, Mark has a serious heart attack. Against the advice of the doctor, he attends Vera's funeral but dies before he and his brother return home.
Alex returns to the city alone and goes to Robert's house with the intention of killing him. Alex falls asleep in his car outside the house and is awoken by Robert who invites him in. As he retrieves the gun from the glove box, he discovers an envelope containing the results of Vera's pregnancy test and a letter written by Vera on the back. The film cuts to a flashback of the time Robert came to Alex's home while he was away. It is revealed that the day before, Vera attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on pills but is saved by Robert. The next day, Vera finds out she is pregnant and confides with Robert, revealing that she never had an affair and that the baby was in fact Alex's, even though she says it felt like it wasn't his as they hardly ever talk. She expressed concerns about having another baby in this relationship that was lacking communication.
Cast
Konstantin Lavronenko as Alex, Vera's husband
Maria Bonnevie as Vera, Alex's wife
Aleksandr Baluev as Mark, Alex's brother
Maksim Shibayev as Kir, Alex's and Vera's son
Katya Kulkina as Eva, Alex's and Vera's daughter
Dmitri Ulyanov as Robert, Alex's friend and co-worker
Vitali Kishchenko as German
Production
Director Andrey Zvyagintsev said the project took him nearly three years to complete, starting from when he first thought about the plot. The film's screenplay was presented to Zvyagintsev by Artyom Melkumian, an Armenian friend of his who worked as a television cameraman. Melkumian loved William Saroyan's The Laughing Matter and spent ten years adapting the novel. Originally, the script had a lot of dialogue but Zvyagintsev said that when he started testing it with actors "it was a disaster" and had to remorselessly cut the dialogue. "The long dialogue would be impossible to film in a satisfying way. It would be very difficult for the actors to hold the viewers' attention for that long," said Zvyagintsev.