Truce was the winner of the best film award at Russian film festival Sochi, which should draw attention to this odd and perplexing feature. Egor (Dobranravov) is a truck driver in a rural backwater in Russia and the film follows a series of increasingly unusual events over what appears to be one very long and trying day. His friend Quasimodo blows his finger off, his uncle requires him to stand guard with a rifle whilst he withdraws money from a bank and various friends, all of who appear to criminals, attempt to rope him into various schemes. Then he sets off to find himself a wife. As you do.
I’d be lying if I said I fully understood exactly what I was supposed to take away from Truce. As far as I could tell, it seemed to be an exercise in Kafka-esque alienation and mundane frustration. Dobranravov gives a good and enigmatic central performance and the supporting cast are fine, if sometimes annoying. The film is occasionally humorous and dallies slightly with magical realism in the third act. I had been expecting some sort of final reel revelation in which I would cry out, ‘of course! It all makes sense now!’ but alas, the film just sort of ends, albeit with some impressively bleak photography of the cold Russian countryside.
It is by no means a specifically bad film – I’m wary to criticise it as clearly everything put on the screen has be done so with deliberate intent – but Truce is definitely the kind of film you appreciate rather than enjoy. Svetlana Proskurina is clearly an intelligent and interesting director and the film invites a kind of post match analysis that others do not. Go see it and make yourself feel clever.
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