The Return Analysis

Taylor White

Mahdi Ahmadi

PHIL 1500

May 10, 2014

The Return

The Return’s primary message can be understood through the divergence of the film’s initial scenes with the ambiguous and enigmatic ending that left me riddled with interior question. At first glance, the film seems to fit into the category of a psychological thriller, but as the film progresses, it becomes apparent that it acts as a metaphor for man’s inherent need for a means of self-definition. Furthermore, the Return was a breath of fresh air in that it exemplified an ambiguous and complex narrative rather than fitting into the stereotypical plotline that seems to define recent movies as ultimately having a happy ending.

The film portrays the undertone of psychological turmoil when a family is estranged from their paternal influence, and this can be directly evidenced through the interactions between the boys and their father. Even though he is present, the specters of the past seem to haunt their relations with both boys longing for contrasting results (i.e. Ivan wanting justification for his father’s absence while Andrei attempts to earn the approval of his father). Throughout the film, the director provides various cues that can act as an adequate means of deciphering what is going on in the movie. This can be referenced in the scene when the boys first gaze upon their sleeping father in the first part of the movie. Subsequently, the boys bolt upstairs to verify their father’s identity by checking a picture that is stashed in some sort of book. Coincidentally, the picture is stashed in a page that depicts the biblical story of Abraham, more specifically the part in which an angel impedes him from sacrificing his own son to God. Moreover, the towers that seem to ri...

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...elf-awareness and confidence regarding his self-perception. Upon the father’s arrival, the two boys act in accordance to their subconscious turmoil with Andrei desperately trying to gain his father’s approval and Ivan scorning the presence of his father in light of his previous absence. Whilst their father’s ethics are questionable, he ultimately succeeds in aiding the boys’ quest for self-awareness via his tragic death. This can be directly evidenced through the actions that the boys subsequently perform after their father plunges to his death in a struggle to reach his defiant son. They exhibit the same sternness of their father in carrying out actions necessary to their survival in spite of the tragedy that occurred beforehand, and as such, they return from the island with a greater understanding of their role within the world as well as their individual selves.