An archaeology student is on her way to Russia’s remote north-west when she has to share a compartment with a shaven-headed drunk
Despite the bone-chilling cold of its location in Murmansk in Russia’s remote north-west, there’s a wonderful human warmth and humour in this offbeat romantic story of strangers on a train. It comes from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, whose 2016 film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki was a lovely
comedy about a real-life Finnish
boxing champ in the 1960s.
His new film is adapted from a novel of the same name by Finnish artist and author Rosa Liksom, and concerns a young Finnish student of archaeology, Laura (Seidi Haarla) who is in
Moscow sometime in the early 90s; she has begun an impulsive affair with her professor, Irina (Dirana Drukarova). Under Irina’s tutelage, with her encouragement, and perhaps because this older woman does not care to have Laura hanging around much longer, Laura has resolved to make the tough rail journey up to Murmansk where she wants to view the petroglyphs there - mysterious rock drawings, thousands of years old.