"BANISHMENT" BY ANDREY ZVYAGINTSEV CLOSES FORTH GOLDEN APRICOT
By Rouzan Poghosian

AZG Armenian Daily
18/07/2007

"Banishment" by Andrey Zvyagintsev, which took awards at the Cannes
Film festival, closed the Forth Golden Apricot in Yerevan. The
film stands for marvelous performance of the actors, profound
philosophical appeal and very expressive shots. Everything is very
natural and vivid. The film is staged based on "Something Funny" novel
by William Saroyan. The film director managed not only to preserve the
spirit of Saroyan’s novel, its philosophy, but he also reveals and
developed the characters and the plot. Zvyagintsev managed to open
the human characters, moods, giving his unique explanation of the
human relations. The imaginary thinking of the film director gained
a humanistic value making the film acceptable and understandable
for everyone.

Zvyagintsev proves that the life is based on love, which leads to
eternal existence, while the habit of living together kills a person,
its individuality and even beloved children can’t help survive. "We
do not belong to our parents, just like our children do not belong to
us, either," says Vera, the mother of a young family in the film. "I
am pregnant, but my child is not yours," says Vera to her husband and
unfolds the dramatic and tragic developments in the film. The husband,
being misled by this statement, demands to make an abortion and get
rid of the child. Right after the abortion, the mother commits suicide
by taking big amount of soporific medicine. The husband understands
the meaning of her words only in the end, when he visits his friend
whom he suspects in an affair with his wife. The friend explains
everything to him, and the film ends in a scene, when the husband
holds the pregnancy test of his wife, which proves that child was
his and there is a revolver on the table.

The spectators were applauding for a long time, taking the pain and
the torture of the characters, as well as the beauty and the wisdom
of the film with them.