American film critic Dave Kehr notes that the road movie denoting a theme of road and romance in endless travel is "moving through the landscape, a short interaction with people, places and objects". This notion looks quite smoothly in the Russian wide-open spaces.
But in contrast to the American romance of road trips with no fixed destination, speaking about home journeys in Russia, the Moscow-Vladivostok train comes into our mind.
But in contrast to the American romance of road trips with no fixed destination, speaking about home journeys in Russia, the Moscow-Vladivostok train comes into our mind.
Road movie
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The fatalism of a Russian fate, echoing the weary anguish of Old Europe, is expressed with an endless road full of featureless fields and forests, occasionally decorated with parking lots of large cities and brief stops at small stations. These stops resemble random fellow travelers. Some of them remain completely closed, while others take road conversations for a confession and pour their hearts out for a strange person whom they never see again.
The whole series is a set of separate shots that capture such revelations. And the smartphone screen turns into a “window” where you can watch the next frame from the movie, thereof road movie. Places change, frames supplement each other. And finally, a kind of film-journey is born. For some, it’s the goal of life, for other it’s a side hobby, a trifling whim. Well, be that as it may, the storyboard of this film - with possible flashbacks, unfinished conversations, dramatic scenes – can be perceived as a search for one's place in the world. The search that never ends.
The whole series is a set of separate shots that capture such revelations. And the smartphone screen turns into a “window” where you can watch the next frame from the movie, thereof road movie. Places change, frames supplement each other. And finally, a kind of film-journey is born. For some, it’s the goal of life, for other it’s a side hobby, a trifling whim. Well, be that as it may, the storyboard of this film - with possible flashbacks, unfinished conversations, dramatic scenes – can be perceived as a search for one's place in the world. The search that never ends.
© Valery Romanov photography, 2022
