Compartmentalizing

There are times when you just have to make things fit. Or you want to find ways to make them fit and readjust your perspective in the process. That's true for both large events, as in the ones depicted in the two films I'll be talking about, and sometimes small ones, as in why I'm talking about two films in this post and not just one. The first is Compartment No. 6; a Finnish film, which is unusual on its face, since not many from that nation make it to this part of the world. It was also partially funded by the Russian Ministry of Culture, because it's wholly based in that nation. It's about a Finnish paleontologist taking the long train ride from Moscow to Murmansk to study the petroglyphs in the area. Along the way, she rides in the title sleeping compartment, sharing it with a Russian man who's heading there to work in the mines. Their personalities are as disparate as their professions, as Laura is pretty delicate and introverted, while Lyokha sometimes literally fills the room, physically and socially. Along the way, both have their expectations met and readjusted, revealing more about who and what they are and how they relate to each other.

Right away, I'll say that I enjoyed the film, but wasn't particularly inspired by it. While Yuri Borisov's performance was frequently hilarious, there was something to be said for the texture and tenderness of Seidi Haarla, as well. Both of them were relatable and, in a film that spent half the time in an 8' x 8' box, that's a great feature. Furthermore, it was a great insight into typical Russian life and the reality that everyday people, even those on the wealthy Moscow end, encounter. The lack of the omnipresent smart phones was notable, especially because Laura's most prized possession is a camcorder (When's the last time the typical American audience saw one of those?) It also said some good things about how relationships can often be only valued for their immediacy, as Laura learns that her girlfriend in Moscow considers her to be out of sight, out of mind, while it becomes easier to be attracted to the boorish Russian who has an equally sensitive side that he strives to hide. But it also didn't really say anything original and began to drag in act 3 when we had all arrived in the promised destination of Murmansk and watched everything proceeding just as act 2 told us to expect. We get that both main characters' perspectives on the other had change, but none of this is really enlightening or invigorating. I think it was a good film, but I wouldn't urge anyone to rush out and find it unless you're particularly interested in that corner of the world.

We also watched Master; the title for which I've been trying to parse more out of. The film was insistent on saying so many things that it really feels like there should be more to it. On the one hand, it's a casual reference to the dated traditions and titles of tiny New England universities and prep schools, as Regina Hall plays Gail Bishop, a professor and college leader/dorm supervisor at the fictional Ancaster University. On the other hand, it's also a play into the overarching theme of the story, which is about the persistent racism in such places, where Blacks who were almost exclusively servants until the 1970s, are now filling different roles and occasionally even being treated as humans. That atmosphere of racism is constantly reinforced, sometimes subtly in new student Jasmine Moore's (Zoe Renee) interactions with classmates, and sometimes overtly, like when the librarian insists on nervously checking her bag to see if she's walking out with more books than permitted. The foundation to this whole story is its presentation as a psychological horror film, in which old paintings are seen with broken skulls instead of faces and old servant bells are mysteriously rung with no one in the room and  a cloaked figure representing a 17th-century witch stalks the campus. Almost all of said horror is directed at the Black characters of the story, both in the past and in the present, which is continually presented in a manner that suggests nothing has really changed.

The problem that I encountered was that the film seems to be trying too hard to deliver too many messages at once. There's the occasionally-hurled-cinderblock-obvious metaphor for racism present in all of the horror elements. But we're also given a great deal of material about the witch trials of early America which were primarily directed at White women. Certainly, you don't have to draw a line between misogyny and racism and the story is set up to engage both, since all three of the main characters are both Black and identify as female. But the witch angle, aside from depicting those horror elements which could've been simply presented as typical ghosts, seemed superfluous. On top of that, halfway through the film, we're informed that a local community of pseudo-Amish people who still dress and act in a manner akin to the 17th century, live nearby and one of them has a child at the school who no longer identifies as White. So now we suddenly have cultural appropriation on the menu, as well, which leaves the viewer as distracted and unfocused as poor Gail is by the end of the film. There are some great moments of tension and the horror elements are handled well, with a lot of it happening off-camera and presenting only the reaction of the victims to the circumstances (think: Jaws.) And, again, there's nothing wrong with weaving those thematic social ills together, as they are often symptomatic of the dominant White culture resisting change in America (witness the same people shrieking about Colin Kaepernick and Disney's support of LBGTQ+ folks.) But it leaves what seemed like a solid and occasionally even subtle film about racism hieing off in other directions that it really didn't need to go. I think a stricter editor might have produced a tighter package. Just like Compartment 6, it's not a bad film, but I'm not raving about it, either.