Recensioni de* critic*

Only after a while does it become clear that the veterinarian is an emotionally disturbed sociopath who devotes himself to animals to avoid getting close to people. Meshchaninova doesn't have much to say about the character apart from this; once she reveals his true nature, the film doesn't really have anywhere to go.

Superbly acted by a cast that also intrepidly deals at close quarters with some unpredictable animal life, Core of the World can be read as a parable about the fragility of human empathy under pressure.

Through the contrast of these very different world views, the script by Meshchanivova, in collaboration with Devonin and Boris Khlebnikov (who wrote and directed Arrhythmia and A Long and Happy Life), builds up a rather dark, Hobbesian view of the nasty, brutish and short nature of existence, even if there’s some balm to be had from moments of affection between creatures, either of the same or different species.

Natalia Meshchaninova joins the likes of Kelly Reichardt and Agnieszka Holland in contributing to the emergent eco-thriller subgenre, marked here by a stark soundscape and a poetics of suspicion framed by a range of ambiguous interpersonal relationships.