The Return (US-2006, dir. Asif Kapadia)
Be warned — this commentary contains major spoilers. Don’t read this if you don’t want to know how the film comes out.
In a depressing display of obtuse literal-mindedness, one reviewer quoted on metacritics.com dismisses this supernatural drama thus: “The Return gets this year’s award for most misleading poster, with its image of an empty-eyed, gray-skinned zombie/ghost that appears nowhere in the movie” (quoted from LA Weekly). Yet despite the fact that there is no literal empty-eyed, gray-skinned zombie/ghost in The Return, the image referred to encapsulates the film’s story, atmospherics and themes with considerable visual cannyness. Even the tagline — which may lead us to resent the fact that The Return doesn’t feature a vengeful Grudge-like spectre if we respond to a film on the basis of shallow assumptions rather than what’s actually on the screen — is not inaccurate, despite the lack of a physically objective ghost. The connection between poster image and film is subtler than that. Even accepting that maybe such subtlety wasn’t the best marketing ploy, it’s a bit embarrassing when the publicity department has a more insightful grip on a film’s semiotics than a professional film commentator.
