Sezon tumanov

I went to the opening of the film here in the UK and I enjoyed it a lot.

I felt at first it was very slow but it became clear after a short period of time that this set the scene for what was to come. A charming film which explores the themes of boredom in a small English village and the ideas of what could have been. The characters develop well and you genuinely feel the tensions of the main character Marina as she struggles to know what to do, torn between two worlds.

I liked it.

Ravinol

Hollywood and art house: the two basic forms of contemporary cinema. One of them tends towards being entertainment and escapist-oriented; the other delights in exploring the vagaries and trials of real life. It takes an artist to make 'real life' entertaining, especially if the film in question is dealing with flat and grey matters like the everyday disappointment of expectations. Two recent British films seem to me however to have hit the authentically Chekhovian note: one of them Joanna Hogg's 'Archipelago', the other being the film under review, an Anglo-Russian production directed by Anna Tchernakova.

Marina, the heroine of 'Season of Mists', is, like the director herself, an expatriated Russian living in the West, and one of the questions the film asks rather subtly is whether it is possible to have a fulfilled life in a country that isn't one's own. (The same question, as a matter of fact, that Tarkovsky was asking in 'Nostalghia'.) Language comes into the matter, but also the genius of the locality. Tchernakova makes a good job of showing how rural south Leicestershire is the most ordinary place on earth - yes, even downright boring - but at the same time magical and wonderful, and imbued with misty poetic grace.

So, why wouldn't you want to live there - especially if you were happily married? That's the question. True love tends to cut through every dilemma, but, although living companionably enough with her garage-mechanic Welsh husband Gregory (a nice performance by Ifan Huw Dafydd), one pretty soon gets the feeling he doesn't come near to fulfilling Marina's highest and deepest ideals. Thus, when along comes a party of Russian musicians - quarrelsome, talkative and fond of the bottle - of course she falls for one of them: it is inevitable. Since this is a film rather than a piece of theatre (or indeed a television play) we can actually go to Moscow with Marina, and take another look around at her birth place. What a lot of life there is in the city, compared to sweet little middle-class England! But is it the right kind of life? And what does one mean by 'a lot of life' anyway? The temptations inherent in the situation are nicely and evenly drawn by Tchernakova. We watch with fascination our heroine trying to make up her mind at the onset of a ferocious mid-life crisis (it makes it more piquant that a child or, rather, children, are involved). Should she obey the promptings of desire (such promptings may after all be merely temporary), or settle for what she has - knowing, or fearing, that in doing so she is opting for second best? Such is the dilemma the movie hinges upon, with some freshly-observed secondary characters, just to make the situation complicated and interesting. Whatever happens, it is not going to be a conventional happy ending. But are we left therefore with an inevitably 'tragic' ending? This is how the film seems to me to be very clever. Often, in life, we simply don't know what our blessings are - or whether indeed blessings come into the matter.Is the colour of life grey, or is it silver? Or both at the same time? Are we - in this film - in spring or in autumn? And what would Chekhov have made of Marina?

This is a well crafted and beautifully photographed film, made on a low budget and none the worse for that. It is an interesting, modern story about the dilemmas of a Russian woman, Marina, who is married to an English car mechanic. They live in a village in rural Leicestershire where he runs the garage, she works as a hairdresser and their daughter (not his biological child) goes to the local school. This is the setting for the ensuing plot which explores issues to do with family, love, expectation and loyalty, constraining gender roles and cultural dislocation - all contributing to a mid-life crisis for Marina. She is torn between the narrowness of her present life in rural England and the opportunities now offered in her home city of Moscow - possibilities which presumably had not been available before she left that life behind. The unexpected arrival in her local town of some musicians from Moscow is the catalyst for change, but with, perhaps, an unexpected denouement.

Most of the characters, including Marina's clients in the hairdresser, are well observed with convincing and endearing detail, and the film team – the director, Anna Tchernakova, the actors and the photographers - succeed in making the thought-provoking and intimate narrative come alive. Tchernakova also uses the landscape to convey thoughts and emotions. The camera work enables us to experience the dichotomy between the scenic, rural world of this quiet English village and the exciting buzz of the modern Russian capital. The long vistas of the railway line and viaduct are a metaphor for Marina's actual and emotional journey. The standing stone on the hillside conveys the rooted, connective power which some people intuit from ancient sites in the countryside, and has an important role in the tale. It is just a shame the stone was clearly not a real one! This film is worth going to see, and offers a glimpse of the difficulties many women face in similar circumstances. I'm uncomfortable with the solution to the story but that in itself is not a problem – it's a subject for discussion!

A modern setting, a contemporary tale, yet with a charm that is in many ways reminiscent of a bygone age.

With a welcome lack of gratuitous explosions and sfx, and a screenplay that is both perceptive and thought provoking, this is the story of an intelligent Russian woman who finds something lacking in life with her English husband.

Her dream life in the West has fallen far short of her expectations, and she has had plenty of time to reflect on this. In England she is perceived as a hairdresser, far removed from the writers' circles which she used to frequent in Moscow, where her talent was understood and recognised.

Location filming in the English countryside and Russian metropolis adds to the contrast between two very different cultures and expectations.

In the tradition of films such as Truly Madly Deeply and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, this is an absolute gem.

A thoughtful continental-style film about a Russian woman (and aspiring writer) who has come to Britain with a teenage daughter (the back story is not explained) and now lives in a village in Leicestershire, working as a hairdresser and married to a local man who runs a garage. But despite her apparently settled existence she still feels the pull of the world she left behind – and the tension this creates is the theme of the film. An interesting twist (for a British audience) is how the English countryside (very visible in the film) is treated - a seemingly innocent rural retreat for the would-be novelist from Moscow. The soundtrack is superb – very evocative.