“How I Ended This Summer,” a Russian film depicting the isolation of two men who work at a remote meteorological station in the Arctic, has won the award for Best Film at this year’s 54th annual London Film Festival.
Jury chair Patricia Clarkson remarked of the director, “Alexei Popogrebsky has combined stunning cinematography with painterly attention to production detail and drawn intense and subtle performances from actors Grigory Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis.”
Not everyone is in agreement about the film: Critic Andrew Schenker of Slant Magazine called the movie “tedium incarnate.” Harsh words, but perhaps then that means Popogrebsky has done a good job of conveying the utter dreariness and boredom of life on an unpopulated Arctic island.
