This is a well crafted and beautifully photographed film, made on a low budget and none the worse for that. It is an interesting, modern story about the dilemmas of a Russian woman, Marina, who is married to an English car mechanic. They live in a village in rural Leicestershire where he runs the garage, she works as a hairdresser and their daughter (not his biological child) goes to the local school. This is the setting for the ensuing plot which explores issues to do with family, love, expectation and loyalty, constraining gender roles and cultural dislocation - all contributing to a mid-life crisis for Marina. She is torn between the narrowness of her present life in rural England and the opportunities now offered in her home city of Moscow - possibilities which presumably had not been available before she left that life behind. The unexpected arrival in her local town of some musicians from Moscow is the catalyst for change, but with, perhaps, an unexpected denouement.
Most of the characters, including Marina's clients in the hairdresser, are well observed with convincing and endearing detail, and the film team – the director, Anna Tchernakova, the actors and the photographers - succeed in making the thought-provoking and intimate narrative come alive. Tchernakova also uses the landscape to convey thoughts and emotions. The camera work enables us to experience the dichotomy between the scenic, rural world of this quiet English village and the exciting buzz of the modern Russian capital. The long vistas of the railway line and viaduct are a metaphor for Marina's actual and emotional journey. The standing stone on the hillside conveys the rooted, connective power which some people intuit from ancient sites in the countryside, and has an important role in the tale. It is just a shame the stone was clearly not a real one! This film is worth going to see, and offers a glimpse of the difficulties many women face in similar circumstances. I'm uncomfortable with the solution to the story but that in itself is not a problem – it's a subject for discussion!
