★★★
“A chilly tale of isolation”
It’s the end of World War II in Russia, and Anastasia (Haig) is at the station to welcome her husband home from the front. Except, realizing he is still the same abusive jerk he was, she stabs him dead. This gets her an extended stay in a Siberian gulag, as a guest of HM Stalin’s government, a situation for which she is entirely unsuited. As soon as she arrives in the remote prison, the first cabin-mate she meets comments on the softness of her hands, and she’s told she won’t survive a week. The biggest threat, however, may not be the Arctic conditions, but the other inmates. In particular, Masha (Andersen), who has taken over as leader after previous top dog, Lubov (Isabelle), suffered an “accident”. The question is, what is Anastasia prepared to do, and how far will she go, in order to survive?
Although this lasts only 73 minutes, end-to-end, it feels longer. That isn’t particularly a bad thing, since it’s mostly a reflection of the near-constant tension. There’s a perpetual sense of menace here, with violence and abuse – physical, mental or spiritual – always lurking just beneath the surface, whether from guards or other prisoners. That tends to make for a stressful experience for the viewer, as they can never relax. The pace is relentless. Things unfold not quite in real time after Anastasia’s arrival, but it does take place over her first night there. Another prisoner escapes, and the women have to decide how to handle that, especially with Lubov, who has a “cozy” relationship with one of the guards, now indisposed. Fresh meat Anastasia and her soft hands is the obvious replacement; not a task she’s willing to take on. Eventually, she’s coerced into the task, which doesn’t unfold as anyone expects.
This was based on Arthur M. Jolly’s stage play, A Gulag Mouse, and its origins in the theatre are frequently clear, both in the limited locations and importance placed on dialogue. It might have been nice had Fink taken greater advantage of the freedoms afforded by cinema, but I imagine the claustrophobic atmosphere generated is entirely intentional. I must confess to being rather confused by the final act, which seems to throw the hard realism in which the rest of the picture is grounded, completely out of the window. By the end, I was far from clear how much of what I’d witnessed previously, had taken place in any subjective reality. It could be virtually any number from zero to a hundred percent, and I found its unwillingness to commit somewhat aggravating.
However, the performances are well-executed, each drawing the different aspects of their characters well. Andersen perhaps stands out, as a woman whose presence in the gulag is due to something far darker than the “stealing an apple” to which she blithely confesses. There’s enough potential generated in the first hour for a 13-episode series, and it’s a bit of a shame that the ending proves incapable of doing it justice.
Dir: Simon Fink
Star: Georgina Haig, Jolene Andersen, Katharine Isabelle, Vera Cherny