the return russian movie review

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Review by David Hill November 2, 2020

In 2003, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev came seemingly out of nowhere to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his visually stunning debut feature The Return . This award announced Zvyagintsev as a major directing talent, and he went on to become one of the most important and respected contemporary directors in Russian and international cinema. However, his triumph at Venice was overshadowed by the fact that child actor Vladimir Garin, who played a starring role in The Return , tragically passed away shortly after the filming was completed. In his award acceptance speech, a visibly moved Zvyagintsev dedicated the Golden Lion to Garin in what was a bittersweet moment for the director.

The Return tells the story of two young teenage brothers, Andrey (Garin) and Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov), who go on a trip with their long-absent father (Konstantin Lavronenko). It opens with a spectacular sequence involving the two brothers and four of their friends. All six boys are supposed to jump into the water from a high tower as a dare. Ivan, who suffers from fear of heights, is the only one who does not dare to jump, and the others call him a chicken and abandon him. He is only able to descend from the tower once his mother (Nataliya Vdovina), who is shown as a loving and protective parent, comes to his aid much later.

On the next day, when Andrey and Ivan return home after having had a fight, they are stunned to learn from their mother that their father has returned home from a twelve-year absence. Zvyagintsev quickly establishes the father as an authoritarian patriarch and as a direct opposite to the mother, among other things by shooting the father from a slightly lower angle than the rest of the family members during a tense dinner scene where the brothers meet their father for the first time after his return. Following this reunion, the father takes the two brothers on a trip that ends up being very different from what they had imagined.

As it turns out, the opening sequence involving the tower does not remain the only test of courage that Andrey and Ivan are subjected to in the course of The Return . Their father puts them through various horrendous ordeals during their trip, which takes on an almost mythical dimension as the three characters leave civilization more and more behind and end up on an uninhabited island in the Russian wilderness. On that island, there is another crucial scene involving a tower. This scene once again underlines the film’s oppositional portrayal of the warm and loving mother on the one hand and the cold and authoritarian father on the other hand, and it makes for a fascinating bookend to the film’s opening sequence.

Regardless of how one chooses to interpret  The Return , there can be no doubt that it is an accomplished film. With the help of his cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, Zvyagintsev has come up with some stunning shots of the Russian wilderness. His direction is remarkably assured, especially for a debut feature film. He adopts a deliberate pace, and he takes his time to build a tense atmosphere of mystery and impending doom. The film’s color palette is muted, and it is mostly made up of blues and greys. However, the father’s red car constitutes a notable exception that underlines the father’s alienation from the other family members.

Furthermore,  The Return features great performances across the board, especially by the two child actors, Garin and Dobronravov. As already mentioned, Garin tragically passed away shortly after the filming of The Return was completed. The circumstances of his death chillingly mirror the film’s opening sequence: After having been dared by friends to jump into a lake from a high tower not far from where the opening sequence of The Return was shot, Garin drowned after he had presumably gotten a cramp because of the freezing water.

Despite the tragedy of Garin’s death and the fact that The Return can be read as a sly critique of Russia, Zvyagintsev’s triumph at Venice was celebrated in his home country. It was widely reported upon in the Russian media, and Vladimir Putin even congratulated Zvyagintsev on his win. This stands in contrast to the controversial reactions that some of the director’s more recent films have received in his homeland, in particular his 2014 film Leviathan , which was criticized by Russia’s Minister of Culture at the time. Meanwhile, Western critics heralded The Return  as a return to the world stage for Russian cinema, and they drew comparisons between Zvyagintsev and the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky ( Solaris ).

The Return is a well-crafted film that contains some stunning images and great performances. The film can be enjoyed on a pure surface level given its emotional power, but it also leaves room for various subtextual readings. While its deliberate pace and ambiguity will undoubtedly frustrate some viewers, patient viewers who are willing to engage themselves with the film will find watching The Return a deeply rewarding experience.

Bibliography:

Menashe, Louis. “The Return.” Cinéaste , Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring 2004, pp. 25-27.

Kroll, Thomas. “Die Rückkehr.” Pädagogisches Begleitmaterial. EBJW and Vision Kino, 2006, https://www.kinofenster.de/download/the_return_die_rueckkehr_filmheft_pdf. Accessed 12 October 2020.

Walsh, Nick Paton. “‘He is alive in my head.'” The Guardian. 11 September 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/sep/12/venicefilmfestival2003. Accessed 12 October 2020.

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Rent The Return on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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A suspenseful but perplexing thriller.

Critics Reviews

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Andrey Zvyagintsev

Ivan Dobronravov

Vladimir Garin

Konstantin Lavronenko

Natalya Vdovina

Galina Petrova

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FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW; A Frayed Family, an Ominous Fishing Trip

By Dave Kehr

• Feb. 6, 2004

The winner of the grand prize at the Venice Film Festival in September, ''The Return'' is the stunning feature film debut of Andrey Zvyagintsev, a 39-year-old Russian director who here renews the grand tradition of Russian cinematic mysticism epitomized by Andrei Tarkovsky.

With a story line at once enigmatic and psychologically acute, ''The Return'' draws on biblical motifs to tell a story of Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrey (Vladimir Garin), adolescent brothers who have grown up in the care of their mother (Natalia Vdovina) in a small, depressed town, their father having disappeared sometime after Vanya's birth.

The boys come home one day to discover that their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) has returned without a word of explanation. He is a hard, independent man with skills that suggest a military background, perhaps as a soldier in Chechnya. He immediately proposes to take the boys on a fishing trip, a prospect that excites the older Andrey, a withdrawn boy who vaguely remembers his father and seems eager to please him, but enrages Vanya, a natural rebel who never knew his father and resents him for it.

The fishing trip turns out to be a cover for an apparently nefarious but never explained mission of the father's. As they drive through an increasingly desolate, depopulated landscape on their way to a rendezvous at a remote island, the boys and their father work through a series of challenges and confrontations.

The father -- remote, impossible to please, harshly judgmental and violently punishing -- is a godlike figure to the boys, and possibly to the director as well. The father's power is symbolized by the knife he always carries, and though the standard phallic associations are present in the image, it also seems to represent a biblical imperative: a call to sacrifice that echoes Abraham's. Vanya's ultimate gesture of revolt is to steal his father's knife, a transgression that seems to unleash the climactic disaster. (A different disaster came after the film was finished, when the young actor who played Andrey died in a swimming accident.)

Visually the film is a marvel, full of unsentimental images of a living, pulsing natural world. The boys' mysterious trip takes them from one body of water (a relatively benign-looking lake, where their mother is still in charge) to another (a treacherous, roiling sea, which the father -- is he a sailor? -- seems able to dominate).

At both points, Vanya must climb a tower to prove his courage, and the consequences in both cases suggest how far he has come in his journey to adulthood.

Mr. Zvyagintsev creates a most moving tension between his archetypal themes and the bristling specificity of his characters. The film, which opens today in New York, is at once highly naturalistic and dreamily abstract, playing out its mythic themes through vibrantly detailed characterizations (and remarkable performances by the entire cast). ''The Return'' announces the arrival of a major new talent.

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev; written (in Russian, with English subtitles) by Vladimir Moiseenko and Alexander Novototsky; director of photography, Mikhail Kritchman; edited by Vladimir Mogilevsky; music by Andrey Dergatchev; art director, Janna Pakhomova; produced by Dmitry Lesnevsky; released by Kino International. Running time: 106 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Vladimir Garin (Andrey), Ivan Dobronravov (Vanya), Konstantin Lavronenko (Father) and Natalia Vdovina (Mother).

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'The Return,' a Russian Family Drama

Kenneth Turan

The Return , a new Russian-language film, tells the story of two brothers whose prodigal father returns unexpectedly after more than a decade. The intense family drama marks the feature-directing debut of 40-year-old former actor Andrei Zvyagintsev. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a review.

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• The Return ">Reviews The Return

Young Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov) has spent almost his entire life without a father on the scene. He, his mother (Natalia Vdovina) and older brother Andrey (Vladimir Garin) have managed quite well, fatherless, for 12 years. When the boys return home one day, they are shocked to find a man in the house. The man, Mother explains, is Father (Konstantin Lavronenko), coming home to resume his place as family patriarch in “The Return.”

Young Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov) has spent almost his entire life without a father on the scene. He, his mother (Natalia Vdovina) and older brother Andrey (Vladimir Garin) have managed quite well, fatherless, for 12 years. When the boys return home one day, they are shocked to find a man in the house. The man, Mother explains, is Father (Konstantin Lavronenko), coming home to resume his place as family patriarch in “The Return.” Robin: Vanya, or Ivan as his father calls him, and his brother are initially thrilled to be reunited with the man they have known only from a faded photo. But, Father is awkward and strained with his new parental responsibilities and mishandles his efforts to insinuate himself back into the tiny family’s household. Mother, confused by her husband’s return, readily accepts the offer when he suggests bringing the boys on a fishing trip to help re-splice the severed family ties caused by Father’s unexplained disappearance years before. As the trio journey from one truck stop to the next, the boys are treated to increasingly erratic behavior as Father alternately tests, scolds and ignores them in an effort to establish his paternal authority. Andrey, who has more real memory of the man before he abandoned them, has the need to bond with his dad. Vanya, unhampered by memories has doubts about the man and a battle of wills begins between father and son. Young Ivan begins to spy on his father and sees that there may be some shady dealings going on. When they finally arrive at the lake for their fishing adventure, the power play between Father and his youngest son intensifies. Andrey sides with his father and a rift forms between the two brothers. Father patches up a rickety old boat and ferries them all to a small island only to cut the trip short as punishment for Vanya’s rebellion. As the conflict between the boy and his father escalates the undercurrent of violence comes to the surface and tragedy happens. First time filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev packs an emotional wallop with the screenplay by Vladimir Moiseenko and Alexander Novototsky. The basic story of the test of wills between Vanya and his father is given mystery with the ambiguity of the man returned home without explanation. The complexity of the emotions, moods and conflicts keeps you guessing right to the end of this beautifully crafted film. The writing, acting and direction are complemented with great artistic beauty by lenser Mikhail Kritchman whose eye for shot composition is among the best I have seen. Nearly every shot is made with a sense of painterly  images that help belie the miniscule budget for “The Return.” Sound design, by Andrey Khudyakov, is beautifully handled throughout. Ivan Dobronravov, as Vanya, gives an astounding performance as he runs the gamut from ecstatic feelings when his father first arrives to suspicion of the man’s motives to outright confrontation. The young actor makes one of the most impressive debut performances I have seen, demonstrating the raw talent of, say, someone like Haley Joel Osment. If this kid lived in the US he’d be on magazine covers. Konstantin Lavronenko, as Father, provides a performance that is rich in mystery as you can only guess of his life for the past 12 years. There is a violent undercurrent in the man that shocks the viewer in its suddenness, such as when he strikes Andrey for some minor infraction. Vladimir Garin, who tragically died in a boating accident just prior to the film’s post-production completion, is overshadowed by his younger costar. “The Return” is a simple story, on the surface. But, as it unfolds, there is a complexity the goes beyond the battle of wills between father and son and opens up a very moving coming of age treatise, too. You don’t see films like this very often and that is a pity. I give it an A-.

Laura: Young Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov) has spent an afternoon enduring the taunts of older boys for his failure to jump off a diving platform the day before.  When he and his older brother Andrei (Vladimir  Garin) return home, they receive another jolt - the father (Konstantin Lavronenko) who left twelve years earlier has dropped back into their lives in "The Return." This winner of Best First Film and the Golden Lion from the 2003 Venice Film Festival is a startling debut.  Director Andrey Zvyagintsev has a strong visual sense and an ear for unsettling sound that strengthen the feeling of foreboding pervading this psychological mystery. When Vanya fails to jump, he remains on the platform until dusk brings mother (Natalya Vdovina), who clambers up and takes him in her arms (just like Director of Photography Mikhail Krichman cradles the platform within its landscape in the frame). Mother falls silent, however, upon father's return.  He simply takes his authoritative place.  His first words are addressed to her at the dinner table - 'Pour them wine.'  Andrei, impressed that his father owns an automobile, attempts to form a relationship, but Vanya is suspicious by the lack of affection the man shows to his boys.  As promised, the next day father leaves with the two boys for a fishing trip, but a battle of wills ensues that ultimately leads to tragedy. When pressed as to the film's meaning, director Zvyagintsev replied 'I would say that it's about the metaphysical incarnation of the soul's movement from the Mother to the Father.'  Writers Vladimir Moiseyenko and Aleksandr Novototsky place this burden on young Vanya, notably called Ivan by the father who treats him like an adult, rather than with the love and affection shown by his mother.  Andrei, who presumably has outgrown mom's babying, gives his father the respect due an adult, but Ivan keeps testing the limits to see when they will break.  When Andrei questions his father's drinking behind the wheel, the man turns it around on him with 'Yeah, want some?' Later Ivan observes his father watching a woman in the rear view mirror and his ultimate reaction is to board a bus to return to his mother.  The father's disciplinary actions are given a sinister veneer as we are seeing them from Vanya's perspective, even though the man softens his stance every time he's challenged.  When Vanya insists that their fishing trip not be sidelined by father's business, the boys's catch is shown - two largish specimens with mouths gaping for the water in a corner of a plastic bag.  Dad doesn't participate, saying he doesn't eat fish, having had too much once (a shaded reference to the women in his life perhaps?),  Even dad's license plate (109123AA) can be seen as a winding down preceding a new build. Zvyagintsev achieves the perfect balance of performing styles from his trio to serve this coming of age story.  Lavronenko remains mysteriously detached until the film's final chapter.  Vladimir Garin plays Andrei as cautiously accepting, the middle man between adult and child (tragically, Garin drowned during a boating trip before the film's premiere). Ivan Dobronravov is marvelous as the young boy demanding a father's love with clenched fists and jutting chin. The director and his cinematographer accentuate triangular shapes throughout the film.  In addition to the obvious representation of the characters, there is the potential for religious symbolism which can be read into the film's climax as well.  The photography is stunning, with a melancholy bluish light that makes the film appear to have been shot only at dawn or at dusk.  Zvyagintsev uses sound creatively and subtly to add apprehension, such as a low industrial hum buried in the mix of a restaurant scene preceding one of the film's biggest confrontations. "The Return" ends with a series of still pictures, like family snapshots, where one can search for additional dimensions of the family dynamics.  It's a thoughtful, thought-provoking film of quiet power.

Robin Clifford and Laura Clifford www.reelingreviews.com

Copyright © 2000–2024 Andrey Zvyagintsev. All rights reserved. When using the site materials reference to this site or the primary sources is obligatory.

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Here is the latest, and most disturbing, of three recent films about children and their ominous fathers. Bill Paxton's " Frailty " was about two brothers who are fearful about their father's conviction that an angel of God has assigned him to kill the Satan-possessed among us. " I'm Not Scared (Io non ho paura) ," by Gabriele Salvatores of Italy, was about a small boy who stumbles upon a chained kidnap victim and gradually realizes his father is the kidnapper. Now we have "The Return," from Russia, which is all the more frightening because two young brothers never do fully understand their father's alarming behavior. It is a Kafkaesque story, in which ominous things follow one another with a certain internal logic but make no sense at all.

As the movie opens, Andrey ( Vladimir Garin ) and his younger brother, Vanya ( Ivan Dobronravov ), return home one day to hear their mother whisper, "Quiet! Dad's sleeping." This is a father they have not seen for years, if ever, and the movie gives us no explanation for his absence. Almost immediately, he proposes a fishing trip, and the boys are less than overjoyed at this prospect of leaving home with a man who is essentially a stranger.

The father ( Konstantin Lavronenko ) drives them to a lakeside. He attempts to impose stern discipline in the car, but this seems less the result of cruelty than because of his awkwardness around young boys. Indeed, the movie's refusal to declare the father a villain adds to the ambiguity; eventually, he creates a disturbing situation, but does he act by design, compulsion, or impulse? And what are his motives?

Whatever they are, it's clear that catching fish is not one of them. There is an ominous scene under a lowering sky and scattered rain, as he and the boys row a small boat to an island far away in the middle of the lake. On the island, the boys explore, and there is a tower that tests their fear of heights. They spy on their father and see him retrieve a small buried trunk. What's in it? We think perhaps he is a paroled convict, returning for his loot. Or a man who has learned of buried treasure. Or . . .

Doesn't matter. The box, which has caused so much trouble, is lost to history by the end of the film, along with the reason why the father thought he needed to bring his two sons along. Was he acting from some kind of stunted impulse to make up time with his boys? Was he subjecting them to an experience he had undergone? Are they safe with him?

"The Return," directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and written by Vladimir Moiseenko and Alexander Novototsky , does not conceal information from the audience, which would be a technique of manipulation, but from the boys, which is a technique of drama. The movie is not about the father's purpose but the boys' confusion and alarm. Like the other two films I mentioned, it eventually arrives at the point where the boys must decide whether or not to act, and here the interior dynamic of their own relationship is more important than how they feel about their father.

Zvyagintsev films on chilly, overcast days, on an island that in this season is not a vacation spot. His cinematographer, Mikhail Kritchman, denatures the color film stock to deny us cheer. We do not like this island, or trust this father, or like the looks of the boat -- which for a long time is left untethered on the beach, so that there's a constant underthought that it might float away. What finally happens is not anything we could have anticipated, except to observe that something like that seemed to be hanging in the damp, cold air.

Note: An additional sadness creeps into the film if we know that Vladimir Garin, the older of the two boys, drowned not long after the film was completed, in a situation not unlike one in the film.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

THE RETURN (2004)

Rated NR suitable for mature teenagers

Vladimir Garin as Andrey

Ivan Dobronravov as Vanya

Konstantin Lavronenko as Father

Natalia Vdovina as Mother

Directed by

• Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Vladimir Moiseenko
• Alexander Novototsky

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Director Director

Andrey Zvyagintsev

Producer Producer

Dmitry Lesnevsky

Writers Writers

Aleksandr Novototskiy-Vlasov Vladimir Moiseenko

Casting Casting

Geta Bagdasarova

Editor Editor

Vladimir Mogilevsky

Cinematography Cinematography

Mikhail Krichman

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Andrew Colton Yelena Kovalyova

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Vladimir Mishukov Eugeny Mayorov

Production Design Production Design

Zhanna Pakhomova

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Dmitriy Tokoyakov Kirill Bobrov

Stunts Stunts

Vladimir Sevostyanikhin

Composer Composer

Andrey Dergachev

Sound Sound

Andrey Khudyakov

Costume Design Costume Design

Anna Bartuli

Makeup Makeup

Galya Ponomaryova

Releases by Date

Theatrical limited, 15 jan 2004, 25 jun 2003, 07 jul 2003, 20 nov 2003, 26 nov 2003, 01 apr 2004, 12 nov 2004, 01 sep 2006, releases by country.

• Theatrical limited 12+ Projekt 100
• Theatrical TP Visa CNC 109652
• Theatrical 12+

South Korea

• Theatrical 12
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Popular reviews

Review by Jim Cummings ★★★★★ 3

A real masterpiece of nostalgia for childhood, even though it’s someone else’s. The sound design and music and cinematography bring me back. Love this movie.

Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 9

This was probably one of my most anticipated watches. In a very short span of time, director Andrey Zvyagintsev has gone from being unknown to me, to becoming one of my favourite directors; an auteur rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kubrick and Malick. This is pretty amazing considering I’ve only seen two of his films. I’m happy to say that The Return, a favourite of many of my LB friends, only further cements that position.

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Review by Catus ★★★★½

My dad finally came back after 12 years and threatened to kill me with an axe. I love him.

Review by Marcissus ★★★ 3

babe wake up it’s time to spend your day off watching miserable eastern european cinema and feeling like shit

Review by SilentDawn ★★★½

As much as I enjoyed Leviathan , this 2003 work by Andrey Zvyagintsev is beautifully enigmatic. It's less novelistic, more of a myth in which the act of 'manhood' is constantly in question, and how generational anguish manifests itself in different ways. The ambiguity of this narrative takes the tension of an absent father and imbues each frame with a quiet, unsettled stillness. Great care was taken in both tone and plotting to emphasize the expressive nature of the performances. This film spoke to me as a formal exercise, yes, but it's also deeply emotional and unafraid to expose its underbelly of lost innocence and coming-of-age awareness. I found it too closed-off initially, but a re-watch will most likely smooth over any bumps in the road. A fine debut by Zvyagintsev.

Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★★

Boy, our father has no name He has no place inside your heart; A bleating spirit has he to you No shelter in your soul.

Damned to die betwixt the tides Exigent eyes: one thousand lives Tired sighs beneath cumulus skies Where he’s been, we’ll never know.

Against the years, a blight on you His presence lost on me.

To spare all sons the solitude Of waves long lost at sea.

Review by Two Cineasts ★★★★★

Film reviews in 22 sentences (or less) Today: The Return

„If you weren’t so evil, I could love you like a father.“ (Ivan Dobronravov as Ivan)

Hi everybody, it is already a daily routine that we open Netflix and Amazon to see if there are new interesting originals and immediately close them again after a few moments, bored, so that we then take a look on YouTube for some insider tips or smaller films that are not so easy to get. Since we are big fans of Andrei Tarkovsky, most recently Aleksandr Sokurov and other artists of this guild, we came across this director here, with a little luck we found a few of his films on YouTube and we…

Review by Daisoujou ★ 15

It might be that my own experiences having a bad dad make me not look at Bad Dad Movies the same way others do. What really frustrates me is that I can't think of a time when the point seemed to be "sometimes toxic people need to be cut out of your life." My guess is that since bad dads are, well, bad, it makes it more nuanced to say something nice about them. This is a huge generalization, but I'd argue there's a fallacy where people see more nuance as inherently better. But sometimes the answer is simple.

The Return shows us two boys who have grown up with only their mother (and grandma) for many years. She's only…

Review by Robert Beksinski ★★★★ 1

The Return has been quoted by many as a haunting film and more intelligently deemed Kafkaesque by Roger Ebert but no where have I seen any stab at interpreting this mammoth beast. It's quite possible that director Andrey Zvyagintsev had no intended hidden meaning behind the mystery presented and it was the experience of the film that matters. I can certainly agree with that but the entire time watching I strongly felt that this ominous and prodigal father figure had to represent something larger than himself as his two sons equally embody the victims of this oppressive force. Perhaps if I had a more of a back knowledge in Russian history or even on the director's thoughts and ideas of…

Review by Hutch ★★★★★ 10

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return is a remarkable debut, emerging as if from nowhere, already fully formed. His direction exercises mature control over pacing and mood, intelligently conducting a thematic inquiry into masculinity within what superficially appears to be an intimate, slow-burning, mystery thriller. His visual style honours both Antonioni and Tarkovsky, yet somehow feels new. In addition, he uses his background as an actor to great effect, extracting terrific performances from the three principals, two of whom are children. His film boasts a poetic eye for astonishing images. Visually, it’s a study in cold blues, which transfers into a study of emotional coolness. It is precisely soundscaped utilising an immaculately crafted ambient score of mellow beats and atmospherics. The film…

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Film blog The film that makes me cry: The Return

From russia with compassion.

The Return has been hailed as a great Russian film. But its not Tarkovsky, and it's not a mafia thriller, and nor is it a cold war comedy. James Meek puts in in the context of a nation in flux

'He is alive in my head'

Tragic twist denies young star triumph in venice.

• Venice film festival 2003
• Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Andrei Tarkovsky
• Awards and prizes
• The film that makes me cry

The Return Review

Striking film superbly executed..

Zvagintsev's use of film language is supremely confident.

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wogma rating: Beg or borrow, but do watch ( ? )

What a debut! Andrei Zvyagintsev ’s hypnotic suspense thriller, The Return , is one of the best films to come out of Russia. Eerie, brooding and cheerless, this film kept me guessing like none other. A story about how the lives of two young boys are shattered when their father suddenly re-appears after a period of 12 years, The Return is cold, deep and flows like a calm mist, until it arrives at a climax you’d never have anticipated. Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice International Film Festival, nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at Golden Globes, Academy Awards and for the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.

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I can only imagine what a high it must have been to discover this film at a film festival. The film is made of stuff that can make you smile in satisfaction for the discovery of a fine, new directorial voice from Russia. An outstanding debut, by all measures.

This review is by guest reviewer Arcopol Chaudhuri . Arcopol Chaudhuri is a senior social media architect at a Mumbai-based digital agency. He tweets as @arcopolc

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4 readers - 2 yays 1 so-so 1 nays

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This page has additional observations, other than the ones noted in the main review .

Parental Guidance:

• Violence : Nil
• Language : Clean
• Nudity & Sexual content : Nil
• Concept : The conflicting emotions of two boys on the arrival of their missing father
• General Look and Feel : Eerie, cheerless

Detailed Ratings (out of 5):

The return - cast, crew, links, comments (1), click here for new comment.

A thoroughly engrossing thriller of the mind. The unanswered questions add to the mystique of the film. Brave review! Viewers used to cut-and -dried denouements will probably not like the film. The boy who played Andrei died in a swimming accident not too long after the film was shot.

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‘anora’ review: mikey madison is a delightfully scrappy force in sean baker’s cracked cinderella story.

A young sex worker’s romantic entanglement with the son of a Russian oligarch gets very messy in this screwball comedy set in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

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Ani lives with her sister in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and works in a Manhattan lap-dancing bar called HQ, an environment of throbbing sexuality and glittering sleaze that Baker refreshingly treats like any regular workplace. New York is tough and a girl’s got to earn a living. There’s both camaraderie and friction among the young women who dance there, and while over-inebriated customers might sometimes need to be cut off at the bar, the bouncer and boss ensure that it’s a relatively safe space.

Approaching each potential client with a winsome smile, Ani knows how to maximize her take-home, gently steering them via the ATM to semi-private booths for a lap dance or into VIP rooms for something more special. Her upbringing with an Uzbek grandmother who spoke no English has given her cultural familiarity and rudimentary communication skills that come in handy with Russian customers, which is the case when Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), hits the club ready to party. “God bless America!” he exclaims as Ani treats him to a little extra.

He invites her to a wild New Year’s Eve party at his palatial digs, and when she makes moves to head home the next day, he suggests an exclusive arrangement whereby she spends the week with him before he’s due to return to Russia and start working for his father. In a winking nod to Pretty Woman , she negotiates upwards to $15,000, cash up-front.

There’s plenty of booze, coke and weed on hand as they hang out at Coney Island with Ivan’s bros and their girlfriends. On a whim, they all head on a private plane to Las Vegas, where Ivan is no stranger to their hotel’s luxury penthouse suite. In what starts out half-jokingly but soon becomes a serious, if impulsive, proposal, he asks Ani to marry him. One four carat diamond ring purchase later, they’re hitched.

In a similarly ironic way to how he used NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” in Red Rocket , Baker makes a motif of the Take That banger, “Greatest Day,” a euphoric anthem for the giddy high on which Ani’s life is transformed. Wrapped in a luxuriant new Russian sable coat, she ditches her HQ job, excitedly planning on the Disney World honeymoon in a magical princess suite that she’s dreamed of since she was a kid.

In the movie’s most hilarious set-piece, Ivan makes a run for it, leaving Ani alone to deal with the goons. But she proves a formidable match for them, causing considerable wreckage and injury before they subdue her long enough to bundle her into a car and go looking for her husband. That night-long search takes them through authentic Brighton Beach locales — a pool hall, a videogame arcade, Tatiana Grill on the boardwalk — all of which serve to enrich the movie’s sense of place.

Ivan’s father Nikolai (Aleksey Serebryakov) and his far more ferocious mother Galina (Darya Ekamasova) fly in to deal with the disgrace to their family and push through an annulment. When Ivan, accurately described by Toros as “a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to grow up,” is finally located, he’s too wasted even to discuss what’s happening with Ani.

As events veer into seemingly dangerous territory, Baker spices up the scenes with throwaway humor that keeps the film buoyant, even as Ani gets a rude awakening about the shallowness of spineless Ivan’s feelings for her, let alone his respect. But as is customary in the director’s work, women treated as sexual playthings in the narrative are treated with dignity by the film. It’s a nice touch that while Galina fumes over Ani’s refusal just to back down and be compliant, Nikolai finds her feistiness extremely funny. He seems unaccustomed to hearing anyone talk back to his wife.

Madison plays Ani’s emotionally bruising experience with affecting poignancy, but the heart of the movie owes as much to the unexpected capacity for kindness shown by Igor, who’s supposed to be the designated muscle. Borisov, so wonderful as the soulful Russian miner in Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6 , plays the character’s sensitivity by stealth degrees, through to a closing scene that’s intentionally awkward but genuinely moving.

Again collaborating with cinematographer Drew Daniels, who shot Red Rocket , this time working in 35mm with anamorphic lenses, Baker gives each of the story’s principal settings — HQ, sleepy Coney Island in winter, glitzy Vegas and Ivan’s airy Brooklyn home — its own distinctive vitality, color palette and lighting textures. While Anora could stand to lose 10-15 minutes, it’s a very satisfying watch, deftly commenting on questions of class, privilege and the wealth divide. The director continues firmly staking out his niche as a chronicler of the messy lives of an often invisible American underclass.

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A Real-Life Mystery Becomes a Time-Bending Horror in This Found-Footage Movie

Before rebooting 'The Strangers,' Renny Harlin brought chaos to the Russian mountains.

The Big Picture

• Director Renny Harlin brings his trademark sense of playfulness and excitement to Devil's Pass , turning a perplexing real-life mystery into a modern horror adventure.
• The film effectively builds tension through ominous discoveries and explores the consequences of characters meddling with things beyond their understanding.
• While the creature effects in the bunker sequence may be lackluster, the twist involving time travel adds intrigue and a satisfying conclusion to the story.

Renny Harlin has nurtured quite the reputation in Hollywood over the years. He has achieved it all, from mega-hits to legendary bombs and everything in between. Die Hard 2 is still a firm favorite with action fans, Cutthroat Island is still considered one of the biggest flops of all time, and Deep Blue Sea , as silly as it is, is remembered as one of the most decent shark movies outside of Jaws . Now, in the horror realm, he's brought us The Strangers: Chapter 1 , the first film in a prequel trilogy that is part of the series initiated by Bryan Bertino with the 2008 film The Strangers . Across genres, the director brings a sense of playfulness to his work, making movies with the wide-eyed childish glee that you’d hope for from any artist, but frequently losing himself in overambition. He often declares his actors the finest on offer , his effects the most realistic, and his stories the most compelling, when anyone with an objective view of things can recognize them as just above average. He may not be the guy you go to when looking for scientifically accurate or logically sound movies, but the man knows how to entertain an audience, and he was a great choice for shaping Russia’s most infamous mystery into a modern horror adventure in 2013's Devil's Pass .

Devil's Pass

A group of students go to the location of the infamous Dyatlov pass incident to make a documentary, but things take a turn for the worse as the secret of what happened there is revealed.

What Is the Dyatlov Pass Incident?

It’s a mystery that made the rounds again recently with the latest season of True Detective , Night Country . A mystery that has remained unsolved for a very long time, but that we now have a plausible explanation for. A mystery that became known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident, in which a group of young Russian hikers ventured into the Ural Mountains never to return. When their bodies were recovered, nothing made sense. It seemed these experienced outdoors people had torn their tent open from the inside and fled into the night, partially clothed and facing certain death in sub-zero temperatures. They had sustained catastrophic injuries , some were missing tongues and eyes, and some were radioactive. The best explanation Russian officials could offer was a “compelling natural force” , which only served to fuel conspiracy theories. Nowadays, researchers inspired by the realistic snow animation in the movie Frozen - seriously! - have managed to show that a freak avalanche, combined with severe hypothermia, is most likely what killed the members of the party lead by Igor Dyatlov. As for the radioactivity, well, they were roaming near the site of a serious nuclear disaster.

Still, for decades on end, the Dyatlov Pass incident remained an unsolved case ripe for a horror movie - and it sure remained so in 2013, when Renny Harlin came along with his own take on the hair-raising enigma. Recently, Issa López , the mind behind True Detective: Night Country , sure used the Dyatlov Pass incident as inspiration for the story of a group of scientists that run away from their Alaskan research station only to be found dead in a corpsicle in the middle of the tundra. López even went as far as copying some of the injuries that were inflicted on the members of Dyatlov’s party, such as a missing tongue and eyes scratched out. Nevertheless, she merely chose elements of the real thing to add to her plot. She also looked to John Carpenter ’s The Thing and, of course, to True Detective Season 1 for inspiration . Harlin, in turn, went a step further and used the actual story as a springboard for his film. And what’s more, he was the first one to bring this weird tale to the screen.

'Frozen' May Have Helped Solve a Half-Century Old Mystery

Harlin went at this enticing project with his trademark excitement, packing up a crew and a largely British cast and heading off to the mountains of Russia to film on location. The DVD behind-the-scenes featurette sees Harlin crawling around in the snow, meticulously going over storyboards, and getting stuck in when it comes to creating his vision and sharing it with his team. He likes to get creative and push boundaries with his work, and while Devil’s Pass doesn’t really stand out stylistically or narratively from its many found footage horror contemporaries, it takes the best the subgenre has to offer and applies it to a bleak and fascinating setting.

What Is 'Devil's Pass' About?

Holly ( Holly Goss ) is a student documentarian who has received a grant from her university to recreate the Dyatlov Pass expedition and try to explain the unexplained. She gathers filmmaker buddy Jenson ( Matt Stokoe ), experienced hikers Andy ( Ryan Hawley ) and JP ( Luke Albright ), and audio technician Denise ( Gemma Atkinson ) and heads off into the unknown. Strange things soon start happening in this frigid wilderness: huge footprints that lead nowhere are found outside their tents, their GPS and compass get scrambled, they arrive at their destination far sooner than they should, and they hear strange noises. As things go quickly awry, it becomes evident that the remaining team has no choice but to venture through a creepy door found in the mountains and hope that whatever lies behind it will keep them safe for now.

Scattered throughout the movie is an appetizing handful of those unexpected moments that make horror such a thrilling genre. The first of which is the discovery of the door, so damned absurd and ominous that, despite some foreshadowing, it never seems like a real possibility until it's there in front of them. As other good found-footage horrors like Area 51 show, there is an inherent tension in people exploring places that they aren’t meant to be in, especially if there is military or government involvement. The characters are meddling in stuff way above their station, opening them up to any number of physical threats, with the best-case scenario being detainment or just being shot on site, the worst being the discovery of some top-secret creation that could spell the end for more people than just the main characters.

Harlin really exploits this with the third act of Devil’s Pass . The door leads to a military bunker, seemingly abandoned for some time, but still strewn with official documents, equipment, and even strangely deformed corpses. This third act is built up to another great moment when two hooded figures approach the group out in the snow. Andy, lying broken on the ground, reasons that whoever these people are, they got here too fast for a genuine rescue attempt, and must have more ominous motives. He urges the group to run and leave him behind. Harlin wisely keeps these hooded figures distant from the camera and the characters, rendering them indistinguishable, just two dark figures advancing through the endless white landscape. The visual uncertainty built here is chilling and helps the audience to feel the same flurry of panic and incomprehension that the characters do.

There is only one sequence that lets the movie down, and that is the reveal of humanoid creatures lurking in the dark depths of the bunker. They’re the same kind of humanoid creature that has been seen a thousand times in horror movies, from The Descent to Blair Witch . Well, that’s not strictly true — these ones can teleport! Once these creatures start popping up all over the place and going after our remaining characters, the scene quickly descends into cheap-looking cheese that is oddly reminiscent of old video games, especially thanks to filming in night-vision mode. After such a great buildup of mystery and suspense, the bad CGI creature effects feel a bit silly and lackluster. Thankfully, the sequence doesn’t overstay its welcome, and does, in its defense, add to the story, because the big plot device is about to arrive.

What Is the Time Travel Twist in 'Devil's Pass?

After J.P. is killed by one of the creatures, Jensen and Holly come across a wormhole, and start trying to put together how and why it might work, and if it could get them out of the bunker. In typical horror style, this leads to many perplexing assumptions and questionable decisions, but it’s an intriguing twist that harkens back to the good old urban legends of military experimentation and its endless possibilities, like those explored in Apollo 18 , the aforementioned Area 51, and The Philadelphia Experiment . The theory of the Dyatlov group stumbling upon some sort of top-secret government work, or being accosted by the military, is still a prevalent one , even now that we have some idea of what actually happened, making this a cool reveal. It’s also a great way to extend the frightening reach of the story’s environment: yeti, UFOs and the Russian military are one thing, but now time travel exists, and it is the only possible way out of this hellish situation? The characters couldn’t be more dwarfed by the magnitude of it all, and the vast implications of their discovery are suffocating.

The very end of the movie is its victorious coup de grâce. The choices that lead up to it may be a bit silly — and might not even make much sense at all — but the ending is the final, brilliant revelation in which not everything but most stuff comes together, and some subtle foreshadowing from the beginning of the movie comes to a shocking conclusion. Holly and Jenson decide that they should take the plunge while visualizing their destination — instead of home, or the nearest airport, or just anywhere remotely civilized, they decide to head for the outside of the door because it's freshest in their minds. Suddenly, two frozen bodies are lying out in the snow, and military men in suspiciously old-fashioned uniforms find them and the camera, and shoo away a couple from a nearby rescue group. T he bodies are carried into the now manned and functioning bunker, and revealed to be Holly and Jenson in humanoid creature form , while the military men marvel over the camera and hang the bodies dismissively on meat hooks. Yep, it's 1959, and the gang has inadvertently fulfilled the reports of an old woman, who earlier told them of finding two extra bodies and a strange machine in the snow when she was part of the Dyatlov rescue efforts all those years ago.

This is where the time travel plot device is brought to its climax, with a wonderfully bleak conclusion for the characters that seems to seal their destinies and bring the narrative back around to a chilling historical conundrum. It also gives the camera — and the use of the found footage format — its proper dues. By the end, the camera itself becomes a character in this weird ordeal and a key player for even the most peripheral players. Not only does it tell us the story in the literal sense, but it acts as a sort of MacGuffin that enables the entire movie to happen. It doesn’t quite break the fourth wall, but it brings the idea of this being real life and not a work of fiction that much closer to the audience. For all the movie’s overuse of camera glitches to mask continuity breaks and not exactly groundbreaking visual storytelling, this ending firmly justifies the found footage format and makes fascinating use of it.

Don’t go into Devil’s Pass looking for a retelling of the Dyatlov Pass incident or for some deeply intelligent or provocative look at this compelling series of events. The true story acts more as a framing device for a modern horror movie, but it provides a truly chilling atmosphere that works well for a 2010s found footage film. Between the endless frigid setting of the Ural Mountains in which there is no safety net and that classic threat of Soviet government involvement, the characters find themselves in a place where they are at the mercy of a number of factors that are much bigger and more powerful than them. This is what a good found footage horror experience needs, for the characters to be out of their element, and to go through an arc from security and certainty to complete helplessness. It’s exciting, at times thoroughly creepy, and opens itself up to further questions. And with Renny Harlin slapping his trademark sense of adventure all over it, it’s a very entertaining watch.

Devil's Pass is available to stream on Shudder in the U.S.

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Cannes film festival 2024: all of deadline’s movie reviews, breaking news.

‘Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot’ Review: Rithy Panh’s Return To The Killing Fields Spotlights Importance Of Today’s Conflict Journalists – Cannes Film Festival

By Joe Utichi

Executive Awards Editor

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Rithy Panh has dedicated the lion’s share of his career to interrogating the genocidal Khmer Rouge era in his native Cambodia, and it is no trivial obsession. Panh fled Phnom Penh when he was just 11, and after his family was devastated in the Killing Fields, he escaped to a Thai refugee camp at 15. Now 60, Panh has been committed to keeping the memory of the impact of Pol Pot’s tyrannical regime alive in documentary, narrative and animated film.

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Loosely adapted from journalist Elizabeth Becker’s account of her visit to Phnom Pehn with academic Malcolm Caldwell and journalist Richard Dudman in When the War Was Over , Panh’s story follows Lise (Irène Jacob), Alain (Grégoire Colin) and Paul (Cyril Gueï) on a tightly stage-managed tour of the regime’s policies in action ahead of an exclusive interview with Pol Pot. Alain, as the Caldwell cipher, is ideologically aligned with the Khmer Rouge, but his colleagues’ attempts to see past the spin is treated with suspicion, and ultimately violence.

RELATED: Cannes Film Festival Photos

It isn’t the first time Panh has flirted with Becker’s work in the region. His 1996 documentary Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy also adapted an excerpt of her experience. But Panh’s singular examination of this dark chapter in his country’s history, and the ways its impact is still being felt, over a long career in cinema, has kept the memory of this genocide alive, and Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot feels particularly piquant as the post-truth era continues to impact Western politics.

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The journalists in Panh’s film aren’t superheroes; their quest for that truth has its own motivations. Yet, the importance of their journey to find it cannot be understated, especially as newsrooms seek to cut back on ground coverage of war, and regimes continue to restrict access. When Gueï’s photojournalist snaps an illicit photograph of emaciated bodies half-buried in mud, Panh intercuts real photographs from the Killing Fields, and there is no denying their impact.

Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot may not walk totally fresh ground for Panh, but there is real power in one filmmaker’s dedication to re-examining real world horror from many angles over many years.

Title:  Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot (Meeting with Pol Pot) Festival:  Cannes (Premiere) Director : Rithy Panh Screenwriter:  Pierre Erwan Guillaume Cast:  Irène Jacob, Grégoire Colin, Cyril Gueï Sales agent:  Playtime Running time:  1 hr 53 min

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Ukraine war latest: Armed ship destroyed in Crimea, Kyiv says; controversial US television host launches show in Russia

Ukraine says it hit and destroyed the Russian missile ship Tsiklon in Crimea over the weekend. Meanwhile, analysts say Moscow is seeking to draw out Kyiv's forces - as Putin makes another significant change to his cabinet.

Tuesday 21 May 2024 23:00, UK

• Kyiv claims it has destroyed last Russian warship armed with cruise missiles in Crimea
• Tucker Carlson launches new show in Russia
• Putin sacks minister in new sign of shift in war strategy
• European country now pushing to let Ukraine strike deep into Russia with Western weapons
• Russia using 'understaffed and incohesive forces' in bid to draw out Ukrainian troops
• Big picture: What you need to know as war enters new week

We're pausing our coverage of the Ukraine war for the moment.

Scroll through the blog below to catch up on today's developments.

Vladimir Putin has praised the late president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, and said he was a "reliable partner".

Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border over the weekend along with his foreign minister and seven others.

Speaking on the leader, Mr Putin said he was "a man of his word" who carried out any agreements the pair made.

"He was truly a reliable partner, a man sure of himself, who acted in the national interest," Russian news agencies quoted Mr Putin as telling Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia's lower house of parliament.

"He was, of course, a man of his word and it was always good to work with him. What I mean is if we came to an agreement on something, you could be sure the agreement was carried out."

The Kremlin leader asked Mr Volodin, who will be attending memorial events in Iran, to pass on "words of our sincere condolences in connection with this tragedy".

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has strengthened political, trade and military ties with Iran in a deepening relationship that the US and Israel view with concern.

Heavy fighting in the Pokrovsk area in eastern Ukraine has forced Ukrainian troops to engage in "manoeuvres," the Ukrainian military's general staff have said.

Their report said Pokrovsk, northwest of the Russian-held city of Donetsk, remains the front's "hottest" sector.

"In some areas, the situation requires our troops to engage in manoeuvres," the general staff report reads.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has referred to the region and adjacent areas as "extraordinarily difficult" in his nightly video address.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said allies are taking too long when it comes to decisions on military support for Ukraine.

In an interview with Reuters, the Ukrainian leader said every decision which everyone came to was "late by around one year".

"But it is what it is: one big step forward, but before that two steps back. So we need to change the paradigm a little bit," he said.

"When we're quick, they fall behind. And then there's a gap - six, eight months of unpassed (aid) packages, and then two-three months of supplies - and a year goes by. We would like not to lose the advantage."

Mr Zelenskyy also said Ukraine had never used Western weapons on Russian territory.

A senior Russian diplomat has said that the EU plan to channel profits from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine would have "unpredictable" consequences, according to the TASS news agency.

According to TASS, Kirill Logvinov, Russia's acting permanent representative to the EU in Brussels, told Russia journalists: "The only predictable thing is that those in the EU will be obliged sooner or later to return to our country what has been stolen."

For context : In March the European Commission proposed transferring to Ukraine profits generated by Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe.

The plan would see 90% channeled through the European Peace Facility fund to buy weapons for Ukraine. 

The rest would be used for recovery and reconstruction.

Russia's defence ministry has said it has begun a round of drills involving tactical nuclear weapons. 

The exercises were announced by Russian authorities this month in response to remarks by senior Western officials about the possibility of deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.

It was the first time Russia has publicly announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, although its strategic nuclear forces regularly hold exercises.

According to the ministry's statement, the first stage of the new drills include nuclear-capable Kinzhal and Iskander missiles.

The maneuvers are taking place in the southern military district, which consists of Russian regions in the south.

A Moscow court has ordered a Russian journalist who covered the trials of the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and other dissidents must  remain in custody pending an investigation and trial on charges of extremism.

Antonina Favorskaya was arrested in March. 

She is accused of collecting material, producing and editing videos and publications for Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which had been outlawed as extremist by Russian authorities, according to court officials.

Today, Moscow's Basmanny district court ordered that she remain in custody until at least 3 August.

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, said earlier that Ms Favorskaya did not publish anything on the foundation's platforms and suggested that Russian authorities have targeted her because she was doing her job as a journalist.

Former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson has launched his own show in Russia.

The controversial US media personality, who this year became the first Western journalist to interview Vladimir Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine, will host his show on the state-owned Russia 24 (Rossiya 24).

In the first episode, Carlson will discuss the dangers of ticks and Lyme disease.

Who is Carlson?

Carlson, who has been a vocal supporter of Mr Putin in the past, was sacked from Fox News in April last year.

He took up the prime-time weekday evenings spot on Fox News in 2016 with his show Tucker Carlson Tonight, and quickly established himself as a key player in the network and an influential voice in Republican politics.

The presenter often embraced conspiracy theories and far-right issues. He repeatedly questioned the efficacy of COVID vaccines and compared mandates to "Nazi experiments".

While he found success with viewers, his inflammatory comments caused some advertisers to distance themselves from the programme.

After his departure from Fox News he rebooted his show on X last year, calling Elon Musk's site the last big remaining platform to allow free speech.

Ukraine says it has destroyed the last Russian warship armed with cruise missiles that was stationed on the occupied peninsula of Crimea.

It comes after we reported earlier comments by Ukraine's military, which said they had hit the Russian missile ship Tsiklon (see post at 3.09pm).

Ukraine's military reported conducting a long-range attack that destroyed the Russian minesweeping navy vessel on Sunday and said it needed more time to confirm what else had been damaged.

"According to updated information, the Ukrainian defence forces hit a Russian project 22800 Tsiklon missile ship in Sevastopol, on the night of 19 May," the general staff said today.

The Ukrainian navy later said on X that the vessel had been "destroyed".

Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said the Tsiklon was Russia's "last cruise missile carrier" based on the peninsula.

Tsiklon never fired a cruise missile while on active service, Mr Pletenchuk said in televised comments.

Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 and is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet headquarters at Sevastopol.

The Russian defence ministry has not commented.

European Union countries say they have reached an agreement to use the profits from frozen Russian assets to provide military support to Ukraine and help rebuild the war-torn country.

The 27-nation EU is holding around €210bn (£179bn) in Russian central bank assets, most of it frozen in Belgium, in retaliation for Moscow's war against Ukraine.

It estimates that the interest on that money could provide around €3bn (£2.56bn) each year.

Ukraine is desperate for more weapons and ammunition as Russia presses its military advantage.

EU headquarters said 90% of the money would be put into a special fund known as the European Peace Facility that many EU countries already use to get reimbursed for arms and ammunition they send to Ukraine.

The other 10% would be put into the EU budget. The programmes that this money funds would help to bolster Ukraine's defence industry or to help with reconstruction, should some countries object to their share being used for military purposes.

A small group of member states, notably Hungary, refuse to supply weapons to Ukraine.

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‘Return to Silent Hill’ Movie Reveals First Look at Pyramid Head, Previews at Cannes Film Festival (EXCLUSIVE)

By Angelique Jackson

Angelique Jackson

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The “ Silent Hill ” film franchise continues with “Return to Silent Hill,” the latest adaptation of the hit horror anthology video game series. Variety has the first look at the famed monster Pyramid Head in the Christophe Gans -directed film, which is previewing at the Cannes Film Festival .

After helming the “Silent Hill” in 2006, Gans returns to direct the next installment from a script he co-with Sandra Vo-Anh and William Josef Schneider. The project is produced by Victor Hadida for Davis Films, Molly Hassell for Hassell Free Productions and David Wulf.

Popular on Variety

The Veterans are handling international sales for the film, with CAA Media Financing representing domestic rights. A rough cut of the film screened Thursday.

“Return to Silent Hill” is the third film in the series, following 2006’s “Silent Hill,” which starred Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean and Laura Holden and grossed $100 million worldwide, and its 2012 sequel “Silent Hill: Revelation.” The horror video game franchise attracts more than 10 million gamers worldwide and continues to expand its footprint, too. In 2022, Konami announced plans to reboot the “Silent Hill 2” game, as well as to create three other new games.

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