Recruited out of college, Alexei Zarubin is in for an education. He had anticipated seeing some action, but finds himself assigned to Ice Station Zilch instead. However, snow-blindness and boredom are very real and pressing dangers here. Initially, the old-timers haze him a bit, but nothing too serious. Clearly, in such cramped and isolated quarters, everyone must get along reasonably well.
Not a complete idiot, Zarubin steadily wins the confidence of the weathered veterans. Time passes without any sightings of invading armies on the horizon. In truth, once Zarubin is instructed how to wrap his feet to prevent frostbite, he is probably in the safest spot of all Mother Russia. Yet, in proper Orwellian fashion, Putin’s grinning mug looks down upon them throughout the ramshackle outpost.
Evidently there are twelve such military bases still in operation along Russia’s northern border, all dating back to the 1950’s. Even during the Cold War, their efficacy was highly questionable, especially during the 1970’s when Canadian PM and Castro BFF Pierre Trudeau was arguably more anti-American than the Soviets. Nevertheless, Zaburin and his comrades walk the line, like characters in a frosty Beckett play.
Zaburin’s senior officers are so cinematic, in a craggy character actor sort of way, it is difficult to believe they are not actors. While Marczak’s approach is strictly observational, he reportedly did a bit of re-staging and the like. Still, cinematographer Radoslaw Ladczuk achieves a more polished look than one sees in the majority of the grungy narrative features that are quickly hailed and then forgotten on the festival circuit. Viewers should be warned, there is a whole lot of snow shoveling in this film. Yet, as the grizzled Valery Vasiliev’s rotation fast approaches, his mounting anxieties regarding home and hearth provide the film a sense of narrative structure.
