Georgy is driving a load of freight into Russia when, after an unpleasant encounter with the police at a border crossing, he finds himself giving a lift to a strange old man with disturbing stories about his younger days in the Army. After next picking up a young woman who works as a prostitute and is wary of the territory, Georgy finds himself lost, and despite asking some homeless men for help, he’s less sure than he was before of how to make his way back where he belongs. As brutal images of violence and alienation cross the screen, Georgy’s odyssey becomes darker and more desperate until it reaches an unexpected conclusion.
Cinematography
Oleg Mutu's unblinking long takes
Direction
Loznitsa's unforgiving formal precision
Sound
Absence of score, presence of dread
Director
Sergei Loznitsa
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Loznitsa structures the film as three nested tales where each protagonist becomes the next's ghost—Georgy literally walks into someone else's past.
Shot in Ukraine but banned there for years; Loznitsa, Ukrainian-Russian, refuses easy nationalism in depicting post-Soviet collapse.
DE
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