Juho Kuosmanen is knwown for small films. With "The happiest day in the life of Olli Maki" (2016) he won a certain regard award in Cannes. With "Compartment number 6" (2021) he even won the Grand prix. "The happiest day in the life of Olli Maki" was hard to see in Dutch cinema's. I saw it a few years later on TV. "Compartment number 6" is shown in more then 30 Dutch city's when writing this review.
"Compartment number 6" is situated during a long train journey. It thus is a road (rail) movie. Road movies are about chance encounters, and in "Compartment number 6" this is between a Finnish scientist (Laura played by Seidi Haarla) and a Russian mine worker (Ljoha played by Yuri Borisov).
Alfred Hitchcock often used the train as a closed system from which it is hard to escape, for example "The lady vanishes" (1938). In this movie you cannot escape danger. In "compartment number 6" you cannot escape a person that is very different and gives rise to a lot of annoyance.
Of course during the journey the two gradually grow towards each other, without the film ever becoming a romcom. In essence their relationship is more symptomatic for the years in which the film is situated, just after the end of the Cold War, with Eastern and Western people still interest in each other and still eager to get to know each other better.
While Laura gradually grows towards Ljoha, she gradually drifts apart from Irina, in Moscow her teacher, landlord and lover at the same time. At the beginning of the film we learn that in this relationship Irina is the dominant and not always sympathetic one, just like Emma (Lea Seydoux) in "La vie d'Adele" (2013, Abdellatif Kechiche). Laura just needs some more time and more distance to come to the same conclusion. Quite striking in the present time is the fact that in this film in relation to the main character her male companion (Ljoha) becomes more and more sympathetic while her female companion (Irina) turns out to be abusive.
The film is based on a novel of the same name by Finnish writer Rosa Liksom. In the novel the trainjourney is on the Mongolian express, in the film the final destination is Murmansk, above the arctic circle. This, combined with the fact that Laura is on a scientific journey (she wants to study the Kanozero Petroglyphs), reminded me of "Beyond sleep" (2016, Boudewijk Koole). In this film (after the novel of Willen Frederik Hermans) a geologist (Alfred) goes on expedition in Finnmark. Alfred never reaches his goal. Laura ultimately reaches her goal, but does not get any satisfaction from it.
