Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen)

At the Heat of a Freezing Surroundings

Amir Siadat

Compartment No. 6 takes place almost during the same period as Petrov's Flu. Laura's camera and Walkman and the reference to Titanic shows that not more than a decade has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The chaotic and dizzying atmosphere of Petrov's Flu, as if there is no space for meaning-making and story-telling, seems like the situation of a land that has not yet recovered from the tremors of a terrible explosion, has not found itself, and is in turmoil. Compartment No. 6, on the other hand, is calm and straightforward and story-teller, and in a slow way, still carries the sediments of communism. The traces of these sediments can be seen not only on the sullen, cold and tired faces of the train and hotel attendants, but also in the filmmaker's worldview. From the very beginning, his mise-en-scenes lead us along with Laura to the stylish circle of snobbish intellectuals, so that we wander along with her with a sense of uneasiness and feel that we do not belong to this arrogant atmosphere! What follows is a journey with the dimensions of archetypes and oriental rituals, the goal of which is the awakening of the "apprentice" and letting go of the belongings. In other words, at the end of this journey (as a pilgrimage), Laura finds happiness not in the appearances of Irina's life and her apartment (with its "high ceiling" and "wooden floor" and "walls covered with carvings" which its beauty is "like books"), but in the sincerity of a mine worker. A drunkard, uneducated and simple-minded worker who we probably find unpleasant and reject him, just like Laura, but it is him who, with his childishness, persistence and simplicity, softens the initial cold realism towards a romantic comedy pattern, and gives life to the cold space of the beginning, and makes us, just like Laura, to reconsider our judgment and travel along him through this path to the end. His place in the compartment is in such a way that Laura often looks down on him (from the upper bed), and the film seems to be going through the ups and downs of the duet between this disparate couple, and changing that look "from above" with an image of "leveling" of the two at the heat of a freezing surroundings.