Review of The Banishment

I have seen four other films by Andrei Zvyagintsev - and I liked all of them (especially "Elena.") This film, though --- "The Banishment" -- is not very good. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and I would have been happy to watch a documentary on the cinematographer's technique and simply look at shots from this film. The director takes advantage of every landscape, showing it in all its glory. The interior scenes are lit and shot like beautiful Flemish paintings. Unfortunately, the story is not well-thought-out and the film is loaded with continuity errors. The story should have had dramatic impact, but it's so poorly written that each event feels contrived and rings false. Very disappointing.