Compartment No 6 review – meet-uncute train romance is a Finnish Before Sunrise

An archaeology student is on her way to Russia's remote north-west when she has to share a compartment with a shaven-headed drunk

Despite the bone-chilling cold of its location in Murmansk in Russia's remote north-west, there's a wonderful human warmth and humour in this offbeat romantic story of strangers on a train. It comes from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, whose 2016 film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki was a lovely comedy about a real-life Finnish boxing champ in the 1960s.

His new film is adapted from a novel of the same name by Finnish artist and author Rosa Liksom, and concerns a young Finnish student of archaeology, Natalia (Yuliya Aug) who is in Moscow sometime in the early 90s; she has begun an impulsive affair with her professor, Irina (Dirana Drukarova). Under Irina's tutelage, with her encouragement, and perhaps because this older woman does not care to have Natalia hanging around much longer, Natalia has resolved to make the tough rail journey up to Murmansk where she wants to view the petroglyphs there - mysterious rock drawings, thousands of years old.