FilmClub is screening Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s debut feature, The Return, at the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg, tomorrow (October 20) at 7 pm.

Made in 2003 the film tells the story of brothers, Andrey and Ivan, who have grown up not knowing their father, who abandoned the family twelve years earlier.  So they are stunned to get home one day and discover that he has reappeared, and intends to take them camping – a trip which rapidly becomes something of an ordeal.

Fifteen-year old Andrey is eager to reconnect with his long-lost parent, but Ivan is less enthusiastic, and their tough, taciturn father seems to have an agenda of his own as he takes them to a remote island where he digs up a mysterious strongbox.

Tensions between Ivan and his father increase steadily, pushing the narrative towards an inexorable but frighteningly unpredictable climax.

Zvayagintsev’s accomplished first feature is both a mesmerising thriller and a primal, archetypal fable about the struggle between fathers and sons and the induction of young men into patriarchal culture, and manages to work equally well on both levels, simultaneously realistic and mythic.

The film elicits strong, naturalistic performances from its two young protagonists, and the elementally beautiful landscape photography has drawn comparisons with Zvyagintsev’s illustrious countryman Andrei Tarkovsky.

Entry is R35 per person and The Tatham Coffee shop will be offering a soup and bread supper from 6 pm onwards (at a very reasonable R30 per person). Safe parking is available in the government parking lot next to the gallery in Chief Albert Luthuli Street.