Classic Cinemas

“Compartment No. 6 evokes a powerful nostalgia for a type of loneliness we don’t really have any more, and for the type of love that was its cure.” — Variety

Joint winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, this unconventional love story takes place as two strangers share a Russian train journey through the Arctic Circle.

In 1990s Moscow, Finnish student Laura has become lovers with her urbane and glamorous professor Irina. Evidence mounts that Irina is not as serious about their affair as Laura, and when the professor pulls out of a planned joint trip to look at ancient petroglyphs, Laura undertakes the long train journey to Murmansk on her own. In compartment 6, she encounters her companion on the journey: Vadim, a drunken lout who immediately insults her. But as time passes, and the two experience terrian rough in more ways than one, an unexpected bond is formed between these two very different people.

A sparkling and inventive film about human connection in the tradition of films such as Before Sunrise and Lost in Translation.