Mark Reviews Movies: COMPARTMENT NO. 6

Compartment No. 6, Sony Pictures Classics

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 3, 2022

Both of the main characters in Compartment No. 6 know what they want right now. She wants to see some petroglyphs—ancient rock carvings—outside the city of Murmansk, in the northwest of Russia. He wants to take a job at a mining company there, in order to make and save some money to start his own business. While she's an archeology student, her trip is more a whim than a research assignment, and as for the nature of the business he wants to get into, he doesn't have a clue. This, of course, is to say that both characters, in a broader sense of life, don't actually know what they want.

Still, Laura (Seidi Haarla), the student, and Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov), the soon-to-be miner, find themselves heading to the same place, on the same train, and in the same cramped sleeper compartment. On the surface, they have so little in common that it's little wonder Laura spends the first few hours of the trip avoiding her quarters. On a deeper level, these two characters share so much that it would be a shame if they didn't make that connection.

The journey of co-writer/director Juho Kuosmanen's film is a very literal one, as the train makes its way from Moscow to Murmansk, with several stops over the course of a few days. The more important one, in how these seemingly unlikely friends become that or more, is so subtle that it's almost imperceptible.

At first, she can't stand him, because he's talkative and loud and drunkenly aggressive, and he's annoyed by her, because she's quiet and stand-offish and possesses an air of superiority that he—even in and especially because of his drunken state—finds insulting. Our initial impression is that Ljoha might turn violent toward her or that Laura might smother him in his sleep.

As with the theme of the story, our first impressions might have some truth to them, but they're nowhere near the full picture of who these characters are, the feelings of isolation and uncertainty that occupy their minds, and how the unspoken can communicate so much and so thoroughly unite people. For something that starts with such aching and animosity, it's impressive how warm and encouraging this little story—adapted from Rosa Liksom's novel by Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman, along with the director—turns out to be.

We first meet Laura, arriving late to a party where she looks and clearly feels like the odd person out among the group. In a few ways, she is: Laura isn't as well-read as the other partygoers, and she's from Finland. The soiree is being held in the apartment of Irina (Dinara Drukarova), whom Laura is dating but who only introduces her girlfriend as her "Finnish friend." Both of them were supposed to take the trip to Murmansk, but Irina had to cancel on account of work. Laura insists on going solo.

In her second-class sleeper compartment, Laura finds Ljoha, her unexpected and increasingly unwelcome roommate for the journey. He has already started drinking from a bottle of booze with a pop-up cup, so she goes the dining car and stays there until it closes. When Laura returns, Ljoha is quite drunk, starts interrogating her, and reaches to grope her at one point. There's nowhere else on the train for her to stay, and since Irina seems cold and disinterested when she calls her, Laura simply has to deal with her accommodations and the guy who's occupying half the room.

There's no real breakthrough moment for these two characters, in which they look at each other and gain some newfound understanding or appreciation for the other. That would be too simple, and while the story here in minimalistic, the development of this relationship definitely isn't that easy.

Apart from a few treks beyond some train stations along the way, most of this film takes place inside the compartment, in some other part of the train, or on assorted platforms, where Laura or Ljoha or both take a quick cigarette break while they can. Laura, who's carrying a video camera to record messages for Irina, is trapped in that misery of being away from someone she loves and fearing that her own absence isn't felt as strongly—or at all—by that other person. She lies in her bunk, watching videos from her time with Irina in Moscow, in an apartment she later describes as a kind of dream. With every phone call to Irina, Laura awakens a bit more to the reality of their relationship.

As for Ljoha, he's more mysterious, and just as Haarla's subdued performance gives us a sense of Laura's romantic despair, Borisov's work communicates a lot about the disappointment Ljoha possesses with his circumstances and, once he sobers up and realizes how he must have behaved, with himself. There's a feeling of the guy trying to make up for his initial mistakes and transgressions, and when Laura appears happier spending time with a fellow Finnish native (played by Tomi Alatalo) than him, he responds with a stubborn but almost endearing kind of childish silence. A deeper disappointment or pain has brought him to this place. That much is obvious.

In this unobtrusive way, the film simply observes how both of these characters gradually recognize, comprehend, and come to empathize with those shared feelings. They never say it aloud (A final moment, in which one character tries to, is played as a joke—albeit a sweet one—of miscommunication). Because the filmmaking and the performances of Compartment No. 6 are so specific and considered, the characters never have to.

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