Fleapit revisited:Compartment No. 6.

Snow, vodka, babushki, Yuri Gagarin, bribery, and balalaikas - or at least talk of balalaikes. We can't be anywhere else but Russia and in the 2021 film Compartment No. 6 (shown on BBC4/iPlayer, directed by Juho Kousmanen, based on a book by Rosa Liksom, and recommended to me by my mate Adam) that is exactly where we are - and where we stay.

Specifically on the slow (30 hours plus overnight stops) from Moscow to Murmansk in the Arctic Circle. It's the 1990s and Finnish archaeology student Laura (Seidi Haarla) is taking the journey because she wants to see some 10,000 year old petroglyphs. Joining her in compartment number six is the initially taciturn Russian miner Lyokha (Yura Borisov). The two of them, it seems, have nothing in common but as it's a feature length film we know that will, surely, change.

For better or worse we can't be sure. Laura writes her journals, makes films with her camcorder, dines on salad, and talks about literature. Lyokha drinks vodka, goes on nationalistic rants (Russia beat the Nazis, Russia went to the moon, Russia, Russia, Russia), and suggests that Laura may well be a prostitute who is travelling to Murmansk to sell her pussy. The city is, after all, a "shithole". What other reason would a young woman have to visit there?

Initially, Laura had planned to visit with her girlfriend Irina (Dinara Drukarova) but Irina has pulled out. She's too busy. We get a feeling that Irina is often too busy to do things with Laura, to check in with Laura, or even to find time to talk to Laura. Irina's life, we get the distinct impression, revolves entirely around Irina.

At first, Laura (understandably) doesn't want to share a compartment with Lyokha and when the train stops at St. Petersburg she seriously considers returning to Moscow. But during another stop, in Petrozavodsk, Lyokha sees off a guy who is hassling Laura and the two of them head off to get drunk on moonshine with a characterul elder lady who Lyokha is friends with.

Inevitably, they start to get on. They laugh at each other, they tease each other, they comfort each other, and they infuriate each other. But will this lead to friendship or it will lead to love? Will it lead to both or will it lead to neither? Will Lyokha reveal a dark secret? Will Laura? Certainly when they're briefly joined by fellow passenger Sasha (Tomi Atalo) we can sense Lyokha's jealousy and resentment. Sasha is a fellow Finn and a widely travelled backpacker who plays Love Is All Around on an acoustic guitar so is either a great guy or a total arsehole depending on how you feel about such people.

The first hour of the film, though interesting and beautifully shot - it's a grim ol' looking train line but it's not without its own austere beauty - is fairly uneventful and though it stays low-key (it's not a film aiming to compete with Avengers:Endgame) it starts to become more emotionally rewarding as Laura and Lyokha begin to open each other. Or at least her to him. He gives very little away as she starts to talk about her life, her relationship with Irina, and her thoughts.

The film starts brilliantly with a blast of Roxy Music's Love Is The Drug (a clue?) and ends equally fantastically with Desireless's breathless eighties disco smash Voyage, Voyage. What happens between those two songs isn't earth shattering but it is very moving. Though this journey is clearly only a small part of the lives of each of the protagonists you get the feeling it is meaningful trip, and - more importantly - encounter, for both of them and one that may just, in some way, change the course of each of their lives.