Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes Competition entry “Compartment No.6” could have been a better fit for the sidebar of the festival, “Un Certain Regard.” After all, Kuosmanen won the section back in 2016 with his minimalist black and white “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. Alas, Cannes director of programming Thierry Fremaux decided it was a good idea to let the watchable, but slightly middling ‘Compartment’ compete for the Palme d’Or this year.
The story is rather simple and familiar, man and a woman share one compartment on a train despite the clear personality differences. Finnish student Laura (Seidi Haarla) and Russian miner Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov) are both going to Murmansk; she a palaeontologist, wants to see ancient petroglyphs. He, headed to work, and drinking … a lot.
The uncomfortable dynamics drive this movie forward until, lo and behold, an attraction starts creeping in. It’s all well tied up and directed with a grooming handheld camera. The coda is the most surprising part, getting us out of the goddamn train and into actual civilization. Otherwise, there isn’t much here except the enigmatic chemistry between Haarla and Borisov [B-]