Shot and negatives smuggled at the border of Russia and Finland, this Finnish submission for the Best International Feature Film and Golden Globe nominee of the same category warms hearts with an unlikely friendship story of a student on a road trip to visit Kanozero Petroglyphs and a boorish miner as they share the titular train cabin en route a passage in winter from Moscow to Murmansk.

I absolutely love this. Flawless ❤️

Surprisingly enjoyable https://uberscaryblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/irina-is-always-talking-about.html

Compartment No. 6 takes its sweet time, but the final few scenes make it all worth it. There will most certainly be things that don't make sense, but the overarching narrative is one that will lead people to happiness and reflection on the best things in life that may or may not be with them today. Juho Kuosmanen tonally dances a high wire act in this Finnish and Russian co-production. The cinematography when the film is set off the train is pretty wondrous. At the end of the day it's a coming of age story of our lead, Seidi Haarla as Laura who meets up with a crude, but endearing Yuri Borisov as Lyokha. They have a chemistry, but Haara is a revelation. The leads are layered and well defined. A multi-day train voyage leaves the viewers with tons of questions, but enjoy the journey as it's usually better than the destination! Final Score: 8/10

This is an adult drama - a slow, steady movie about two people relating to each other on a long train journey through Russia. Very art house.

COLD WAR If ever there was a movie for this time in history. This is it. "Compartment No.6" is the creaky train battle ground for a bright Fin and a bellicose Russian, brought together in uncomfortable circumstance. She solo tripping (after a partner bail) to check out ancient petroglyphs. He solo tripping for slavish mine work. Destination Murmansk, as frigid and unforgiving as a quick map query would suggest. The student and the brute. Things don't start well. Booze fuelled and smoke ashes flying, Lhoja inflicts his boisterous party hardy manchild personality on a retreating and recoiling Laura. Cornered, she flees the dungeon compartment to find no sleeping alternatives. A rail ride from hell, perhaps to hell. Hell is involved it would seem. Flip Finland for Ukraine (not much of a stretch in current and past circumstances) and we have a political allegory of current events - a bizarre coincidence. Yet this is more a personal clash where language, ideals, class, and gender are in play. Borders be damned. Out of options, Laura reluctantly returns to her intended journey, keeping the clumsy Russian at arm's length, which proves difficult in their claustrophobic pad. Of course there is more to the simple boor that only time and patience could reveal, the train being the ideal vehicle for a relationship to develop. Where and how this cold war interaction of lost souls goes is the glorious guts of this stark, cramped film. Yuriy Borisov and Seidi Haarla are pitch perfect as the strangers on a train, with little in common, much to despise, and yet an odd dependence that slips out every now and then. The human condition is a funny one, sometimes ha-ha, sometimes strange, and sometimes, if only briefly, confoundingly wonderful. This movie has all the feels, without ever slipping into sloppy cliche. Nazdorovie! - hipCRANK

Compartment No. 6 tells the story of a woman who ends up in a train compartment with a man she does not know. The two of them start to talk and it quickly becomes apparent that they have a lot in common. As they continue to talk, the woman starts to realize that the man may be more than he seems. As the story progresses, the true nature of the man is revealed, and the woman must decide whether to trust him. The two lead performances are excellent, and the chemistry between the two actors is palpable. The film is visually stunning, and the setting of the train adds to the atmosphere of paranoia and claustrophobia. Unfortunately, the arc of the story becomes predictable early on, and the pace is so slow that one needs to be very patient to get through it. Some may find the payoff rewarding but, for me, it left me feeling hollow. Compartment No. 6 is a well-acted and beautifully shot film that falls victim to its own predictability. If you are willing to take your time with it, you may find something to appreciate. However, if you are looking for a fast-paced thriller, you will be disappointed.

Compartment No. 6 is a love story of sorts, a strange journey. It's a fascinating film that lives in its own world quite beautifully. Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen has made his latest film in Russia, although with a Finnish protagonist. That being Laura, played wonderfully by Seidi Haarla. Laura is studying archaeology in Moscow and decides to take the long train trip to Murmansk to study the famous petroglyphs (rock paintings). A relationship has also come to an end so its represents a good opportunity to escape the remnants of that. Her experience starts badly though as she has to share a compartment (No. 6) with a boorish and oafish Russian man. Unfortunately there is no escape and she has to make do with the situation. So transpires over a couple of days a journey of strange happenings and timely realisations. Somehow a strange bond forms between the two. It's a small journey but one with little twists through out. It's an unconventional film but I was compelled through out. As said Haarla is wonderful but so is Yuri Borisov as the Russian miner. This subtle film is wonderfully acted and written, a unique journey through the pitfalls of human connections.

This is a romance movie and it's a bit of a problem if, like me, you simply do not believe the protagonists are likely romantic partners. In fact it is difficult to see they have anything much in common at all. So for me the film is much stronger in its portrayal of Russia the place and people than what we are invited to believe in. And in that respect it is brilliant and given the current situation, something we are not going to seeing again for a very long time.

Cinema's romance with locomotives continues unabated with Finland's entry for International Features at last year's Oscars. The obvious comparisons are Before Sunrise and Brief Encounter, but non-train-related films like In The Mood For Love also cast a shadow here. Juho Kuosmanen's adaptation of Rosa Likson's novel sees two strangers thrown together in a confined space on a Soviet train bound for the arctic port of Murmansk, in a smartphone-less era where we still use camcorders and Walkmans. With Seldi Haarla's reserved Finnish archaeological student Laura missing the girlfriend she left behind in Moscow and Yuriy Borisov's intense and slightly mysterious Russian miner, Ljoha (a James McAvoy lookalike), making drunken and vulgar comments at Laura on the first night of their journey, the central characters are set up to be such polar opposites, and the stuff of nightmare for Laura to endure, it makes the inevitable softening of their initially antagonistic relationship all the more evocative and powerful. As mildly dramatic incidents draw them closer, it's less the romance but the human connection that blossoms subsequently that the film is interested in exploring, as even Yuliya Aug's stern and very Russian train conductor mellows towards her passengers. This is definitely more a mood piece than a narrative one and once you've made peace with that and the familiar narrative beats this film is sticking to, there's much to enjoy here, whether it's the sweet and subtle performances or the meticulous and immersive feeling this film recreates by shooting on location on a real moving train. If it's inevitable that the ending peters out a little once we left the train and the film navigates its way to that arthouse/European ending that strives for aching lyricism and ambiguity, the journey getting there was worth the price of the ticket.

The excellent Compartment No. 6 places a woman on a long train journey in the company of a brute, vodka swilling male. The film examines issues of woman and culture contrasted to the posturing male of the Russian cult of Putinist machismo. Compared to the great heroes of Russia such as Yuri Gargarin, the Russian male, who now has Putinist kleptocrats as heroes, has fallen far. The hollowness of that masculinity is examined with the terrible price the men pay for it, and Yuriy Borisov is very good in that part, so that all is not lost. The price it also exacts from women is at the center of the film, and in that Seidi Haarla is excellent: strong and vulnerable, cultured yet earthy, a little cynical yet open to the redemption of others, and very real. It is a testament to the script (and the film) and all those involved that while it is not nihilistic, nor is it satisfied by a monofocal or monotonal critical perspective. There are no easy answers offered, no get outs, no easy or lazy signposting. All is achieved though the characters, excellently written, performed, and filmed. An engrossing film that carries its weight lightly and doesn't betray humanity.

The relationship depicted ended up developing into a deeper love than most romances in Hollywood real life celebrity affairs!

Compartment No. 6 is a perfectly timely reminder of what a brutalsky horrible place the Soviet Union was, early post-Soviet Russia was, and why Russia is still the way it is. The time frame is early to mid 90s based on dialogue and technology, but before the country widely Westernized. You feel the daily and constant struggle, to make sure your flat has heat and the water works, to plod through the snow in front of your building, to use public transport, to fight with conductors, store clerks, waiters and lovers for your daily needs. One nameless character summed it up: I can prove that there are more people in Ireland than in China. She then explained her proof. Any nation whose people could glibly issue this statement, well aware it is utterly false, could easily be told that an invasion is a peace mission, that a maternity hospital is a military target, that a nation that did nothing to provoke you left you no choice but to declare war on them. They know it's bullshit but they are too beaten down to react.

I'll be blunt about this one -- I just didn't get it, and I don't know what the fuss is all about. Director Juho Kuosmanen's third feature tells the story of young Finnish archaeology student who travels from Moscow to Murmansk to see a collection of fabled Russian petroglyphs after being unceremoniously ditched by her girlfriend, a tale that meanders more than the tracks of the train on which she travels. To a great degree that's precipitated by the implausible "relationship" that slowly simmers between the protagonist and the drunken, lecherous, oversexed traveling companion who shares her train compartment, a working class lout who, when he's not excessively imbibing in anything alcoholic, engages in various forms of threatening and sexually aggressive behavior. (And we're supposed to believe that she's legitimately developing an attraction to someone like that? Yeah, sure.) And this is just the first of many illogical plot devices that pepper a narrative that increasingly lacks believability the further one gets into the film, including elements that unfold on its endless train trip and upon arrival in Murmansk, where yet another set of wholly unlikely events emerges. I didn't buy any of it, not for a minute, and I don't understand how others could, either. This one goes off the rails early on and never manages to get back on track, and, by movie's end, I'd be hard-pressed to understand why anyone would care anyway.

smart start and wise story, bold personalities and great actor and actress. pure feelings and scenes and the only thing I missed was sitting on that compartment and smell it and drink with them.

an intimate, wonderfully acted and photographed film as 2 characters, each on their own paths, who re-examine themselves, when thrown together w/ someone from a completely different world.! WONDERFUL

"Compartment no. 6" is an intriguing chronicle that leaves us confused, passionate and sad, the director managed to capture different feelings in specific scenes.

Bittersweet picture with a precisely (and heartbreakingly) caught atmosphere of the 90s in Russia. A beautiful story with the nice characters.

one of my favourite films of 2021!!!

This is a lovable and profound story where the intended goal of a journey appears to be a fiasco, while a side issue becomes, against clichéd expectations, a matter of heart.