The unsettling tranquility of the Swiss countryside figures as both a theme and a metaphor in many Swiss films--including Alain Tanner's Messidor and Claude Goretta's The Girl from Lorraine. In The Return, a prodigal son makes the proverbial return to his small Swiss town after having lived abroad for some time. At first, everything is reassuringly unchanged; but his own estrangement becomes pronounced as he begins to see, through his new eyes, transformations in the people of his past, who go on preserving the veneer of “the good life” as if, indeed, nothing has changed. A disturbing parable with an eerie feel reminiscent of contemporary writers such as Borges, The Return is the fourth installment of director Friedrich Kappeler's series, The Seven Deadly Sins.