A love story between strangers on a European train: you can hear the comparisons to Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy before it’s even left the station. But while the shadow of Before Sunrise and its sequels looms large over Compartment No. 6, there is very little that’s cute about this meet-cute, and there’s far less intellectual repartee — though it shares just as much tenderness, in the end.
This is a meeting of extreme opposites under extreme circumstances, with most exchanges grunted through bleary eyes and clouds of vodka burps. The first encounter between archaeology student Laura (Seidi Haarla, who possesses an endlessly interesting face) and coal miner Lyokha (Yuri Borisov, also brilliant) is blunt and offensive: he asks her if she’s a sex worker, she teaches him the Finnish for “Go fuck yourself.”
Kuosmanen’s direction is naturalistic and artful, making atmospheric use of the Russian winter setting.
That dry sense of humour, the kind that comes from living in cold climes, keeps the film feeling warm, even when its environment isn’t. Inevitably, that humour (plus a fair few chugs of hard liquor) allows for the pair’s relationship to thaw, and mutual respect — even love — blossoms. They make a fantastic couple: plucked from different countries, walks of life and perspectives, their claustrophobic, forced shared space encourages an improbable companionship.
Juho Kuosmanen’s direction is naturalistic and artful, making atmospheric use of the Russian winter setting; there’s something oddly romantic about harsh snowy landscapes speeding past a train window, and Laura’s journey (ostensibly to hunt for ancient petroglyphs) is tinged with bittersweetness. But this is, at heart, a simple romance in the old-school Hollywood tradition. Opposites, inevitably, still attract.