A love story between strangers on a European prepare: you possibly can hear the comparisons to Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy earlier than it’s even left the station. However whereas the shadow of Earlier than Dawn and its sequels looms massive over Compartment No. 6, there may be little or no that’s cute about this meet-cute, and there’s far much less mental repartee — although it shares simply as a lot tenderness, ultimately.
It is a assembly of utmost opposites beneath excessive circumstances, with most exchanges grunted by means of bleary eyes and clouds of vodka burps. The primary encounter between archaeology scholar Laura (Seidi Haarla, who possesses an endlessly fascinating face) and coal miner Lyokha (Yuri Borisov, additionally sensible) is blunt and offensive: he asks her if she’s a intercourse employee, she teaches him the Finnish for “Go fuck your self.”
Kuosmanen’s course is naturalistic and clever, making atmospheric use of the Russian winter setting.
That dry sense of humour, the type that comes from dwelling in chilly climes, retains the movie feeling heat, even when its setting isn’t. Inevitably, that humour (plus a good few chugs of exhausting liquor) permits for the pair’s relationship to thaw, and mutual respect — even love — blossoms. They make a incredible couple: plucked from completely different nations, walks of life and views, their claustrophobic, compelled shared house encourages an unbelievable companionship.
Juho Kuosmanen’s course is naturalistic and clever, making atmospheric use of the Russian winter setting; there’s one thing oddly romantic about harsh snowy landscapes dashing previous a prepare window, and Laura’s journey (ostensibly to hunt for historical petroglyphs) is tinged with bittersweetness. However that is, at coronary heart, a easy romance within the old-school Hollywood custom. Opposites, inevitably, nonetheless appeal to.
