Truce

Winner of the award for best film at this year’s festival of Russian film at Sochi, Truce provides a picaresque account of the life of young Egor (Ivan Dobranravov), who earns his living as a truck driver. He lives in a provincial ‘no man’s land’, where the principal incidents are his friend Quasimodo’s operation to reattach the end of his finger (a task carried out by ‘the doctor from Moscow’) and his uncle’s visit to the bank to withdraw money for a car. Egor has to wait outside with a gun in order to protect him from potential robbers. He soon embarks on a journey to a nameless town, where he appears to have been brought up, searching for a bride, and re-encountering childhood friends and acquaintances, most of whom seem to be involved in petty crime. An authentic portrait of life away from the big city, Svetlana Proskurina’s film presents her frequently eccentric characters with wit and humanity even in the most disturbing of situations. Dobranravov (who appeared in Zvyagintsev’s The Return) gives an attractive and award-winning performance. —Peter Hames