Labelled as heir to Tarkovskii, Andrei Zviagintsev has recently risen to fame
as the winner of two Golden Lion Awards of the 2003 Venice IFF. Zviagintsev
never trained as a director, but is an actor by profession; and this is debut
film. Nevertheless, the critics’ and audience responses unanimously labelled
Zviagintsev the new Tarkovskii, and compared the film
The Return with
Ivan’s
Childhood, which had won the Golden Lion in 1962, largely because of the
religious symbolism of the film and the construction of frames that imitate the
compositions of renaissance depictions of Christ.
