How I Ended This Summer (M). Director: Aleksei Popogrebsky. Starring: Sergei Puskepalis, Grigory Dobrygin. 130 minutes
Medianeras (Unclassified 15+). Director: Gustavo Taretto. Starring: Javier Drolas, Pilar López de Ayala. 95 minutes
Two new films contemplate loneliness in vividly distinct environments. One, How I Ended This Summer, is a Russian thriller in which the practical and psychological implications of isolation erode the sanity of two meteorologists based on a desolate Arctic island. The other, Medianeras, is a modern fable about 'urban loneliness' in which the crowded, thoughtless architecture of Buenos Aires is a metaphor for the chaos of connections in the modern world which, ironically, can make it harder to connect on a human level. Both films identify a lack of interpersonal connection as detrimental to basic humanity.
On paper, How I Ended This Summer reads like a social experiment gone wrong. Writer-director Popogrebsky takes veteran researcher Sergei (Puskepalis) and recent graduate Pavel (Dobrygin) and places them upon the claustrophobic vastness of the icy, bear-infested island. The two men take readings and periodically report their findings back to the mainland through the static of an old two-way radio. In between, they have only each other and their shockingly picturesque surrounds to occupy them. They don't get along: Sergei demands but does not receive respect and vigilance from his young charge; Pavel resents the older man's unfriendliness and is wary of his short temper.
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This visually stunning, contemplative film could almost be read as anti Gen Y propaganda. Pavel's meanderings upon the island are soundtracked by rock music blaring through his earphones. Initially this invokes transcendence; Pavel's appreciation of spirited, raucous music augmenting rather than tempering his appreciation of the natural beauty of the island. As the film progresses and Pavel is revealed increasingly to be lazy and irresponsible, his iPod and videogames seem more and more to symbolise some nonchalant skein that isolates self-centred youths from the world around them.
When Pavel receives bad news from the mainland that affects Sergei, he makes the rash decision to refrain from passing on the message until they are due to return home from the island. Pavel seems to regard life on the island as a kind of fantasy vacation: earlier we have seen him swinging wildly from decrepit equipment and leapfrogging along columns of empty drums, himself like a figure from an industrial-age videogame. Presumably his desire to shield Sergei from harsh reality stems more from a