Compartment No. 6

After receiving many accolades from the Cannes festival, I perhaps expected a little more than I got from Compartment No. 6 in the end. It is such a sweet, guileless railway road-movie drama about two lonely souls coming together, and people are certainly not going to find it disappointing, although they are probably not going to find it that impressive either. Sadly, I just have to add that, even after enough of a break from the hustle and bustle of the movie festival, I found this screening just as long and exhausting as the maddeningly long train journey across Russia from Moscow to Murmansk. The one-hundred-and-seven minute running time feels more like one-hundred-and-forty-seven minutes. [KVIFF 2021] (08/25/2021)

This original romance about the gradual coming together of opposites has great actors and the perfectly crafted poetic-realistic setting of the worn-out interiors of Russian trains (which look quite similar to the interiors of the trains operated by Czech Railways), as well as excellent camerawork and colors. Upon reaching the final destination, however, the wheels basically come off the film and the central couple’s mating call is no longer nearly as interesting as their preceding quarrels. Mainly due to the incompatibility of the two characters, which is built up from the beginning, as she is an intellectual lesbian university student and he is a primitive, uncouth, drunken miner (though with a good heart), the romantic plot in their case is somewhat beyond the realm of believability. (08/27/2021)