Izgnanije

Alex takes his wife Vera and their two children out to the country to spend a few relaxing weeks in his father’s lovely old house. They go for walks, meet neighbours and indulge in the pleasures of village life. But despite the harmonious picture the family presents to the outside world, some unarticulated problem clearly weighs heavily upon the relationship between husband and wife. The riddle is solved one evening: Vera is pregnant, but Alex is not the baby’s father. His world collapses around him, and he has to take a decision...

A dramatic parable on love and hate, guilt and atonement, on the fear of losing a loved one and the dread of every moment spent alone with that person.

The beauty with which this film is composed and photographed is breathtaking, the strength of its timelessly sparse images highly impressive. Full of biblical allusions and mythological references, the pictures shot in Moldavia, France, Belgium and Russia merge, detached from time and space, into an ideal backdrop for this reduced yet atmospherically dense family drama. The director masterfully creates images reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s trance-like visual realms.