This Finnish film had the bad luck of extremely poor timing. It’s a film about an unlikely friendship with a Russian man and how Russians in general aren’t so bad underneath their gruff exteriors. Then in 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine, kicking off the largest war in Europe since World War 2 and with it went any hopes of this film being a success. It’s a solid art house film, not an especially outstanding one but certainly good enough to win more acclaim under more favorable circumstances. It’s especially poignant to us given that my wife once had a somewhat similar encounter on a train ride in China in her youth.
Laura is a Finnish student in Moscow who is in love with Irina, a sophisticated woman who frequently hosts parties with erudite guests at her apartment. She plans on travelling with Irina to view the petroglyphs in faraway Murmansk Oblast but Irina cancels on her at the last moment so she goes alone. She arrives at the train and is dismayed that she is going to have to share a compartment with a Russian man for the entire duration of the several days long journey. The man Ljoha is already drunk when she arrives and behaves boorishly, wondering if Laura is a prostitute. She lies to him that she has a boyfriend and tries to stay out of the compartment as much as she can, hanging out in the dining car but eventually is forced to return there to sleep. As they interact more, she learns that Ljoha is going to Murmansk to work in the large mine there. He has never heard of the petroglyphs and is stupefied that someone would be willing to make such a long journey to that godforsaken place just to see some old rock drawings. During the train’s stops, Laura calls Irina and even considers cancelling the trip and returning to Moscow. But it becomes obvious that the relationship isn’t as important to Irina as it is to Laura and Irina has other companions and lovers. When the train stops overnight in a town, Ljoha invites Laura to come along with him to the house of a friend. She declines at first but when Irina fails to pick up her call, decides to go along with him.
So this is a road trip film that takes place largely on a very long train ride with pretty much only these two lead characters. It’s kind of predictable in that the seemingly uncouth Ljoha is nicer and kinder than the first impression we have of him but the film pulls the execution off well enough. I especially like how Ljoha has never heard of the petroglyphs that Laura thinks is perhaps the most significant feature of Murmansk. Yet she too has never heard of the huge mining complex that dominates its economy, indicating they come from different worlds. The bitter cold and crushing isolation of the landscape the train passes through don’t make for good scenery but it does reinforce how the train is a kind of refuge in which to strike up a friendship. The storytelling is nuanced and rich, letting us know that the journey is really a breakup for Laura without anyone actually saying it out loud. It’s a little insane to me that she goes to such lengths to actually reach the petroglyphs even after it becomes clear that she isn’t really interested in them either, but I suppose it’s part of the convention of the genre.
One complaint I have is that while Laura is the protagonist and the focus is justifiably on her emotional turmoil, surely it wouldn’t go amiss to give Ljoha a little more character development. Laura gently probes him about details of his life, including who the elderly woman they visit is to him and whether he really does have some kind of criminal background. Ljoha rebuffs most of this curiosity and the film is content to leave things as they are. It seems like a waste to me and a symptom of the bias of artistic types to favor their own. Ljoha’s perspective is more interesting to me than Laura’s. What does he make of this foreign woman who has the leisurely means to travel to one of the most remote parts of Russia merely to view what he thinks are some meaningless artefacts? Director and writer Juho Kuosmanen imparts in him compassion, humanity and a zest for life that belies his rough demeanor but we never get to go inside his head or peek inside his life. At the end of the day, Laura gets to work her feelings for Irina but Ljoha just goes back to a tough life as a miner with no future.
I wouldn’t fault the film for its good intentions in fostering friendship between Finland and Russia despite their historical enmity even if it does go out of its way to show that not all Finns are good. It does unfortunately suffer from bad timing as it turned out maybe some Russian stereotypes are true after all. Overall, not a bad film but not a great one either.