> How I Ended This Summer
5 stars (out of 5)
Directed by: Aleksei Popogrebsky
Cast: Grigory Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis
Rating: (M)
From the title alone, it would be easy to dismiss How I Ended This Summer as throwaway teen fluff. But this Russian drama is a piece of existential excellence; a brooding meditation on consequence, circumstance and trust.
How I Ended This Summer would make a great stage play, with action isolated to one location and two characters. However, that would strip it of one defining characteristic - the landscape. Unfolding like a stunning photo essay at 24 frames a second and spliced with curious interludes of absolute stillness and mystical time-lapse imagery, the action, if you can call it that, takes place on a meteorological research station in the Russian Arctic.
The older of the men, Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis), has a long association with the remote outpost and does not initially show much respect for his young apprentice, Pasha (Grigory Dobrygin). During a fishing excursion, Sergei reluctantly trusts Pasha with radioing meteorological readings through to a base controller. During this stint Pasha receives news that Sergei's wife and child have been in an accident. Trusted to pass on the information, Pasha keeps quiet. This is when the story proper begins.
Nothing is ever alluded to, and that's the best part. The horror of what Pasha knows eventually gets the better of him and when it does, all the subtle brooding, glaring and moodiness boil over into the scary realisation that there is no judicial impasse here. Add a stray polar bear, some nuclear radiation and a shared rifle and you have all the elements for one of the most engaging films of the year.
Best thing: The sound design. The way that Aleksei Popogrebsky builds tension through the ears, rather than the eyes, is eerily brilliant.
Worst thing: Just imagining what it would be like to live in such a place.
See it with: Salty trout on crackers.
- Mark Orton
