The Banishment (2008) poster
2008 · drama · music

The Banishment

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev2h 38m2008
ElsewhereIMDb7.59kRT65%Metacritic59
  • heavy
  • slow-burn
  • bleak
  • cold
  • intimate
Movie DNA

Heavy, slow-burn, measured drama / music, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.

Our read · The Banishment (2008) reads as a heavy, slow-burn, grounded drama · music entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The Banishment

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What watching it is actually like.

You want painterly Russian family dread that rewards patience with annihilating clarity.

ends devastatingit will wreck youbuilds to a gut-punch finalegrips by minute 35attention 5/5feels its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upchild perilsuicide theme

Skip it tonightSkip if slow arthouse pacing, marital cruelty, or a soul-crushing final reversal awaits.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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