All aboard for a tension-filled ride
Compartment No. 6 (M, 108 mins) Directed by Juho Kuosmanen Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★ 1⁄
2 In Finnish and Russian with English subtitles
All Finnish archaeology student Laura (Seidi Haarla) wants on the train journey from Moscow to Murmansk is solitude.
So the prospect of hours stuck opposite Lyokha (Yuriy Borisov), with his vodka, smelly sausage, bog roll and loud opinions, fills her full of dread. Escaping to the dining car works for a while, but only until the waiters start dropping unsubtle hints that they are closing.
Still feeling unnerved – and a little unsafe – Laura pleads with a female guard to find her somewhere else to sleep. ‘‘You think you have a choice?’’ is the incredulous reply. Even the offer of money fails to sway her.
A lengthy stop in St Petersburg offers a little respite.
Now in even more of a gloomy mood, she returns to her seat to find a woman and two children have also joined her and Lyokha in the compartment. To Laura’s surprise though, Lyokha isn’t quite the creep she thought he was. While he opens up about his mining work and plans to start his own business, he is interested in her ultimate destination to see 10,000-year-old rock paintings.
Suddenly, he’s inviting her to stay with his old friend when the train makes its overnight stop and she’s beginning to contemplate that it might not be such a bad idea.
Inspired by Rosa Liksom’s 2011 novel of the same name (which was set on the Trans-Siberian Railway in the Soviet Union in the 1980s), Finnish film-maker Juho Kuosmanen has crafted a tense, compelling drama that offers plenty of narrative twists and turns.
Shooting on moving trains proves to be a masterstroke, giving the narrative and setting an authentic feel, as the characters are buffeted along towards their ultimate destination.
A deserved co-winner of the Grand Prix prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, you can’t help but be drawn into Laura’s plight, as she butts heads – and then unexpectedly bonds – with the polarising Lyokha.
The excellent Haarla is the emotional anchor of Compartment No. 6 but Borisov is the wild card and hook. You’re never quite sure of his intentions and ‘‘potential bad guy’’ status, a situation that keeps you gripped and on the edge of your seat.
It all builds to a pitch-perfect finale leaving viewers more than satisfied with their voyage into the unknown.
Compartment No. 6 is screening now in select cinemas.