Pasha is the young “intern”, essentially, who’s
come up to the frozen Arctic for a summer – the sort of summer in which it
never gets dark and there are mosquitos everywhere. An Arctic summer, you might say. We see Pasha at various times
rocking out on his headphones and playing violent video games back in their
insulated shack/dorm room, which is outfitted with a rudimentary sauna and
various old utensils in which to cook fish and walrus. Sergei is the
middle-aged old hand who relays at times during the fairly sparse dialog that
he’s been coming here for years to do this sort of mundane measurement work. You
need to be a hardy, resourceful soul to survive even the summer in the Arctic,
and early on we see Pasha sternly chastised by Sergei for naively leaving their
residence without cartridges in his gun. There are polar bears, you know. It
becomes obvious early on that Sergei has a barely-disguised loathing for his
young, incompetent helper, a disdain that only increases in intensity as Pasha
misses several crucial readings due to oversleeping.
If I give away much more I’ll have to reveal
some major plot points, and I don’t want to do that. So let it be said that
because of some things that happen, some circumstantial timing, and most
importantly because of some things that are not
said, these men for all intents and purposes end up hunting each other in a
race to the death across the tundra. It reminded me more of battle-for-survival
films like “Touching The Void” than it did an intense Russian drama, and it’s
actually a bit of both. It may be a slowly-paced film, but it’s not a slow film at all. It is deliberate and exceptionally
pulse-racing in parts. I think it’s a must-stream for all you film nerds out
there.
