How I Ended My Summer is a Russian film -- all 132 minutes of it -- with only two characters in a tiny bit of the Arctic, at a weather station. Claustrophobic? No, the scenery goes on forever with full knowledge that they are the only two people for miles and miles. There is a rabbit, a polar bear and some bird, an older man and a younger man. The younger man makes a youthful, cowardly choice not to pass on a message to the older man which eventually leads to a nearly deadly feud. The movie has no music until the lsat 3 or so minutes, we see long minutes of inaction. The two actors shared a best actor aware at the Berlin Film Festival because they WERE the film.
I feel as if I have been in the Arctic for a long time because this movie comes on top of finished T.C.Boyle's Drop City, the final half of which takes place above the Arctic circle in Alaska. I have been above, by a matter of not may feet, the Arctic circle in Finland, in August. but extreme places fasciante me. This movie however worked on our nerves with its slowness. The feeling of being trapped and in danger was nerve wracking. I am not sorry I saw it and I will not forget it.
2 comments:
June -- Netflix has "How I Ended My Summer" -- I will watch it tonight. They don't have Drop City. I too like the foreign films and watched a nice one last night Kolya, a Czeck film. Thanks. Good post -- barbara
Thanks, Barbara. I don't think Drop City was made into a movie, it's he novel I read. I miss Kolya when it was in the theatres. Some day I'll have to start using Netflilx.
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