Quelques jours ensemble
Stéphane Breton
France | 2014 | 90 min
World premiere
Languages : Russian, English, Uzbek, French
Subtitles : English, French
Russian people are passing before us during an endless train journey in winter. We lose ourselves in their speeches, gestures, faces, eyes. Anecdotes turn into admissions. Memory invades the compartment and seizes the empty spaces of the present. The train continues through the snow, cold and grey fog… An infinite film existing somewhere between the ephemeral and the eternal.
A long journey in the overheated third-class carriage of a train launched at the speed of a galloping horse through the Russian winter. A former Red Army tank crewman, encountered by chance on the berth opposite, becomes the commentator on things and people. The most unexpected characters get on and off, snack, gossip, daydream, and snore – and above all tell their broken life stories. Ethnological filmmaker Stéphane Breton films – as always – at shoulder height, at the right distance. He is not there to talk “of” but to talk “with”. His camera comes to life and calms down, following the pace of the moment, and ends up losing itself in the speeches, gestures, faces and eyes. Anecdotes turn into admissions. Memory invades the compartment and seizes the spaces left empty by the present. In the meantime, the train continues through the snow, cold and grey fog… The soul of Russia on parade, in this infinite film existing somewhere between the ephemeral and the eternal.
Luciano Barisone
