The Russian landscape is always depicted as being bleak and harsh. I don't think you could get a more bleak and harsh landscape than the one depicted here.
Some of my favourite films and episodes of television series are those where you have a few people trapped in a location for the whole story. I love the compact nature of a story where all the twists and turns take place in one spot and people can change by their behavior. This is one of those films where you have two guys stuck at a meteorological station on a remote island. At first not a lot happens and the story is just about the way these guys don't get along very well. The film is all about subtlety. The guys are not obvious in their dislike for each other. It is the subtle way they do things that shows how they do not get along. There is also the small event that happens to make the relationship change and make it more intense than it already is. While you can understand the young man, Pavel, not wanting to upset his co-worker, Gulybin, by revealing some bad news but it just makes the situation worse and he ends up worse off than he would have been if he had of told. I do feel that the second half of the film drags quite a lot. I think the tension could have been better if things were a little tighter.
Grigory Danilov is excellent as the young Pavel whose youthful exuberance makes him disliked by his older co-worker. I would have liked to know a bit more about his character though and how he came to be on the island. Sergi Pushkepalis gives a nicely stoic performance as the older man who can't understand why his co-worker is so reckless. You can understand why Pavel get so exasperated by him.
A somewhat overly long thriller that is nicely subtle in the story it tells. It is recommended if you don't always like things spelled out for you in an obvious way.
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