I suggest some of the reviewers I have read here should read some Russian classics. A lot of irrational behaviour happens in Dostoyevsky for example, and deep down we could all behave out of the character we believe we are. Grigoriy Dobrygin plays a young man who is a meteorologist in the wilds of the Arctic, and with him there is an older man equally well played by Sergey Puskepalis who is now deceased. I have come to this film late and it is a quiet but frightening masterpiece. If anyone who is in physical or mental pain I suggest avoidance because the extremes of both forms of suffering are almost relentless from the start. The two men are the only characters in this scenario, and the hellishly beautiful Arctic background only accentuates their pain and inward horror. The younger man irrationally does not tell the older man of a tragedy in his family, for reasons not really explained. The two men do not get on, and after a beating in a sauna from the older to the younger an unconscious keeping back of information could be a reason. Fear ? Revenge ? As in Russian literature and also in films ( think Tarkovsky or Sokurov ) explanations are obscure. But guilt festers in the youth as well and fear drives him to frantic ways of escape, and I will not spoil what the consequences are. I also have not heard of the director Alexei Popugrebsky but judging by the masterly way he directs he has made a great film about the limits of human endurance, and I would give it a full ten if it had been just ten minutes or so shorter. I think the agony of the situation could at times have been just that little shortened, but I may well have just been tired and in pain myself when I watched it. A must see for anyone who has lost faith in our current cinema of sound and fury signifying nothing. It is now 14 years old, and I sincerely hope it has not been lost or put to one side.
Review of How I Ended This Summer
