COMPARTMENT No. 6
****
Director: Juho Kuosmanen
Screenplay: Livia Ulman & Andris Feldmanis and Kuosmanen, inspired by the eponymous novel by Rosa Liksom.
Principal cast:
Seidi Haarla
Yuriy Borisov
Dinara Drukarova
Julie Aug
Lidia Kostina
Tomi Alatalo
Country: Finland/Russia/Estonia/Germany
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 107 mins.
Australian release date: 7 July 2022.
The Finnish film Compartment No. 6, directed by Juho Kuosmanen, won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year (sharing the accolade with Ashghar Farhadi’s terrific A Hero, currently showing here too) and also won a number of other awards at various international film festivals; it was selected as its country’s entry for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards and Vulture called it “one of the best films of the year.” Now, Australian cinema-goers have the opportunity to see if all this acclamation was justified but, as so often happens with films of this calibre, it is only having limited screenings around the country, so you’ll have to be vigilant to catch it.
Adapted from the eponymous novel by Rosa Liksom, the film opens in Moscow in the late 1990s, a time before mobile phones or digital recorders, when people relied on mechanical machines like Walkman cassette players, Polaroid ‘instant’ cameras and bulky video equipment for their entertainment. It’s the end of the analogue age, when people are incommunicado when they travel. We are introduced to this period via a group of academic friends gathered in an apartment enjoying a party (Roxy Music’s Love Is the Drug is on the turntable) hosted by university lecturer Irina (Dinara Drukarova). She introduces her Finnish lover Laura (Seidi Haarla), a red-haired student who is ‘lodging’ with her, to the group and we learn that Laura is in Moscow studying Russian. The two women are supposed to travel together on a long train journey to Murmansk in the Arctic Circle the following day to see some famous petroglyphs (ancient images carved on rock) but, at the last minute Irina cancels, claiming work commitments are forcing her to remain in the city. Unhappy but undeterred, Laura decides to go alone. It’s a five-day journey in an old Soviet-era sleeping compartment and the other occupant is a young, rough-neck miner on the way to a job. He’s shaven-headed, drunk and rude and his name is Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov); a fellow traveller sniffily says of him, “There must be a factory around here where they make guys like him.” You get the picture. It’s not looking like a fun trip for Laura…
Compartment No. 6 looks thoroughly authentic, faithfully replicating the time in which it’s set thanks to the artistic decisions of Kuosmanen and his team, especially cinematographer Jani-Petteri Passi. He chose to film on location rather than in a studio, to use non-professionals in as many supporting roles as possible and to shoot with a hand-held camera, all of which gives the film an immediacy of place. It’s so evocative, you can almost smell the interior of the train compartment when the door opens. Adding to the reality of the mise en scene are the bleak northern towns the characters travel through and the fact that the director chose to film in winter, when everything is covered in grey snow and you can see the protagonists’ breath. It’s a pretty grim set up, all of which makes what happens even more surprising. Haarla and Borisov are outstanding. Needless to say, personal hygiene on the journey is minimal, particularly as the train’s bathrooms have barely a trickle of water, so after a few days Laura/Haarla is looking fairly dishevelled. He, on the other hand, looks like a skinhead and you’d probably cross the road if you saw him approaching you but his character is multifaceted and Borisov plays him to the hilt, constantly keeping us on our toes. It helps that he really is Russian and she really is Finnish.
Kuosmanen has said that, “My aim is to escort the audience out from the cinema with a comforting acceptance of life, in all its absurdity,” and it is an ambition that he has realised. There is a beautiful simplicity to his screenplay which makes it like some kind of modern-day fairytale. There’s a hint of magic in Compartment No. 6.
Screenplay: Livia Ulman & Andris Feldmanis and Kuosmanen, inspired by the eponymous novel by Rosa Liksom.
Principal cast:
Seidi Haarla
Yuriy Borisov
Dinara Drukarova
Julie Aug
Lidia Kostina
Tomi Alatalo
Country: Finland/Russia/Estonia/Germany
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 107 mins.
Australian release date: 7 July 2022.
The Finnish film Compartment No. 6, directed by Juho Kuosmanen, won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year (sharing the accolade with Ashghar Farhadi’s terrific A Hero, currently showing here too) and also won a number of other awards at various international film festivals; it was selected as its country’s entry for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards and Vulture called it “one of the best films of the year.” Now, Australian cinema-goers have the opportunity to see if all this acclamation was justified but, as so often happens with films of this calibre, it is only having limited screenings around the country, so you’ll have to be vigilant to catch it.
Adapted from the eponymous novel by Rosa Liksom, the film opens in Moscow in the late 1990s, a time before mobile phones or digital recorders, when people relied on mechanical machines like Walkman cassette players, Polaroid ‘instant’ cameras and bulky video equipment for their entertainment. It’s the end of the analogue age, when people are incommunicado when they travel. We are introduced to this period via a group of academic friends gathered in an apartment enjoying a party (Roxy Music’s Love Is the Drug is on the turntable) hosted by university lecturer Irina (Dinara Drukarova). She introduces her Finnish lover Laura (Seidi Haarla), a red-haired student who is ‘lodging’ with her, to the group and we learn that Laura is in Moscow studying Russian. The two women are supposed to travel together on a long train journey to Murmansk in the Arctic Circle the following day to see some famous petroglyphs (ancient images carved on rock) but, at the last minute Irina cancels, claiming work commitments are forcing her to remain in the city. Unhappy but undeterred, Laura decides to go alone. It’s a five-day journey in an old Soviet-era sleeping compartment and the other occupant is a young, rough-neck miner on the way to a job. He’s shaven-headed, drunk and rude and his name is Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov); a fellow traveller sniffily says of him, “There must be a factory around here where they make guys like him.” You get the picture. It’s not looking like a fun trip for Laura…
Compartment No. 6 looks thoroughly authentic, faithfully replicating the time in which it’s set thanks to the artistic decisions of Kuosmanen and his team, especially cinematographer Jani-Petteri Passi. He chose to film on location rather than in a studio, to use non-professionals in as many supporting roles as possible and to shoot with a hand-held camera, all of which gives the film an immediacy of place. It’s so evocative, you can almost smell the interior of the train compartment when the door opens. Adding to the reality of the mise en scene are the bleak northern towns the characters travel through and the fact that the director chose to film in winter, when everything is covered in grey snow and you can see the protagonists’ breath. It’s a pretty grim set up, all of which makes what happens even more surprising. Haarla and Borisov are outstanding. Needless to say, personal hygiene on the journey is minimal, particularly as the train’s bathrooms have barely a trickle of water, so after a few days Laura/Haarla is looking fairly dishevelled. He, on the other hand, looks like a skinhead and you’d probably cross the road if you saw him approaching you but his character is multifaceted and Borisov plays him to the hilt, constantly keeping us on our toes. It helps that he really is Russian and she really is Finnish.
Kuosmanen has said that, “My aim is to escort the audience out from the cinema with a comforting acceptance of life, in all its absurdity,” and it is an ambition that he has realised. There is a beautiful simplicity to his screenplay which makes it like some kind of modern-day fairytale. There’s a hint of magic in Compartment No. 6.