A lyrical piece of Russian cinema

A very subtle and quietly moving film with understated performances, a wonderful use of static camera angles that seem to swell to life with the details packed into the frame and a real insight into Russian life and its strange underbelly of societal misfits. The story involves a drunk father and his son taking a trip from Moscow to Koktebel in the Crimea but the real joy of this movie is not in the storyline but, as with all road movies, it is the sense of incidental beauty-a long zoom shot into a profile of the boy as he looks out a freight train onto the passing trees and the snow covered dirt, or a neat little trick a young lady does with a pack of cigarettes. It is the combination of lyricism and poignant social revelation that marks this film as special