Film Reviews

How I Ended This Summer

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring:
• Details: Russia / 130mins (TBC).

The New World and the Old World clash in Aleksei Popgrebsky's slow-moving drama, which sees two men in a standoff on an island somewhere in the Arctic Circle. What could have been an engrossing psychological drama, How I Ended This Summer's languid pacing kills any tension it could have had.
Stuck in a meteorological outpost, Pavel (Dobrygin) is bored with the job, wiling away his days dosing about abandoned Soviet radar stations; Sergei (Puskepalis) is a bully, a grumpy, by-the-book family man and no company whatsoever for the young post grad. When Sergei goes fishing, Pavel receives a call from HQ to say that Sergei's wife and child were killed in a random accident. With instructions to break the bad news to Sergei and to inform him that there will be a ship coming to pick them up in five weeks, Pavel, knowing that Sergei will go apeshit, delays the communiqué out of fear. There is only so long you can keep a secret like that, however...
Director Popgrebsky has a real talent for tapping into the mundane and boring day-to-day machinations of this kind of job... because his film is mundane and boring. There is a great story to be told here but Popgrebsky consciously veers to the art-for-art's sake: ridiculously long scenes where nothing happens that leave the audience with nothing to do but marvel at Pavel Kostomarov's beautiful cinematography. It's a shame too because there was so much to explore, like the quickly raised and then dispelled homoeroticism between the two and the rising cabin fever.
The theme of old world versus the new is evident right through and nicely played out. The old world, represented here by Sergei, is intimidating but it's knowledgeable, noble and strong – Sergei even dresses like a fisherman. Pavel, on the other hand, is weak, pasty-skinned, cowardly and sneaky. Watching how these two factions must live in harmony is interesting throughout. Saying that, the characters here only exist to represent the theme: we never get to know why Sergei would live so far from his family and young son, or why Pavel would take this kind of job.
A nip here and a tuck there and How I Ended This Summer could have been something great but it's too bloated to move quicker than a snail's pace.

Review by Gavin Burke