Compartment No. 6 (Finland) (5/24)

I must say that I love a train ride. And I love a train movie. There is just something oddly romantic and philosophical and timeless and otherworldly about a train that other modes of transportation (car, plane, bike, spaceship, tugboat) just aren’t bringing to the table. To step on a train is to be divorced from your real life for a brief moment, and a chance encounter with a stranger seems almost inevitable. Such is the case with last year’s Finnish Oscar submission about a female student from Finland who boards a train in Moscow and finds herself in a compartment with a Russian miner. What compartment you ask? No. 6. (Duh!) The pair are from completely different corners of the universe and poke at one another’s humanity in a series of fascinating conversations as they cross the Russian countryside. The film, based on a novel, makes me want to hustle down to Grand Central, hop aboard a train, and meet a mysterious a stranger.