Direction: Juho Kuosmanen
Country: Finland / Russia / other
Helsinki-based writer-director Juho Kuosmanen made his directorial feature debut in 2016 with The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, a memorable black-and-white drama inspired by the true story of an amateur boxer. In his second move, Compartment No. 6, he changes style and mood, but his talent remains intact. The film is charged with resonant beauty and keen-eyed focus, despite the pervasive air of disquietude of an arresting road trip stirred by quirky romance. Working on a paradoxical balance of mirth and melancholy, the director reaps substance from the most precious details, showing us how two apparently incompatible persons can become attracted to each other.
The plot, based on Rosa Liksom’s novel of the same name, follows Laura (Seidi Haarla), a conflicted young Finnish student of archeology who leaves her Russian girlfriend (Dinara Drukarova) in Moscow to board a train to Murmansk. Her intention is to visit the ancient Kanozero petroglyphs. While on the train, she’s forced to share the minuscule compartment with Ljoha (Yuri Borisov), an indelicate, alcoholic Russian miner who ignores good manners.
A lyrical sense of bittersweet acceptance permeates the film, and the cinematography amplifies the sense of wintry desolation. Still, the images are brashly poetic rather than debilitating. Not in any circumstances I was bored, and to that contributed the low-key performances by Haarla and Borisov. Unapologetically, the film feeds on the unimagined discoveries of their characters while getting to know each other. Sometimes obscure in tone, sometimes oddly appealing, this is not your conventional romance film.
