As the southerly blast brings parts of the country to a brief standstill, we can at least console ourselves with the thought it could be worse - we could be at a polar station on a desolate island in the Arctic Ocean.
As the southerly blast brings parts of the country to a brief standstill, we can at least console ourselves with the thought it could be worse - we could be at a polar station on a desolate island in the Arctic Ocean.
I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but with How I Ended this Summer (Tuesday 12th June, 8.30pm) director Alexei Popogrebsky's does a remarkable job of capturing the isolation, danger and bleakness of both his film’s location and his two characters predicament. We can all be grateful we’re not employed by the Russian Meteorology Service.
There are only two characters in Popogrebsky’s film; gruff and experienced meteorologist Sergei Gulybin (Sergei Puskepalis), who has been on this Arctic island in Chukotka at the north eastern tip of Russia for a considerable period of time, and a young student Pavel Danilov (Grigory Dobrygin) who has joined him for the summer.
It’s a tense relationship, with Pavel becoming increasingly paranoid and affected by “isolation sickness” when he’s given the job of passing on some devastating personal news to Sergei. Pavel's summer job turns into an Arctic nightmare and Popogrebsky’s film moves from a film obsessed with the everyday banality of life to an examination of human fragility.
Grigory Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis shared the prize for Best Actor at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival and the film went on to win the Silver Bear for artistic achievement at the same festival, as well as Best Film at the London Film Festival.
Bleak and overpowering landscapes also take pride of place in director Peter Weir’s The Way Back (Saturday 16th June, 8.30pm). While Pavel and Sergei may have felt like they’d been banished to a Gulag, our heroes in The Way Back actually were. Led by a young Polish man (Jim Sturgess), a group of multinational political prisoners sent to Siberia during WWII escape their prison camp and trek South through horrendous winter conditions to the Mongolian border, through China to Tibet, and then across the Himalaya’s to India.
Inspired by a true story it’s a momentous journey, and you’ll feel like you’ve been on a decent hike as well - it’s a bit of an endurance test for all involved. Weir manages to avoid sentimentality and melodrama as he lets the enormity of their struggle to survive and the landscape they travel through speak for itself.
And finally, after all these beautifully shot desolate landscapes and explorations on the human condition, I recommend a laugh. Burke and Hare (Monday 11th June, 8.30pm), loosely inspired by a true story, is a rather wonderfully ridiculous Scottish saga staring Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as a couple of Irish scam artists turned murderers trying to make their way in Edinburgh in the 1820’s.
Featuring a who’s who of British acting talent (Tom Wilkinson, Isla Fisher, Tim Curry, Christopher Lee, Ronnie Corbett, Hugh Bonneville, Stephen Merchant and Bill Bailey - just to name a few) and directed by the legendary John Landis this tongue-in-cheek black comedy doesn’t quite live up to expectations, but is still an amusing and quirky take on this slice of history.
Enjoy,