How I Ended This Summer

Aleksei Popogrebsky - 2010
This is photographed particularly nicely. We have pretty long takes, and some very long shots. This can also move in, and when it does it is close (not even a full head). For these reasons, there was a comparative lack of plan americains of equivalent. The director
The colours were what most struck me. Often using a deep level of focus, probably closing up the aperture (so it was lighter, 'really', than what we see), it gives a nice sense as we must pick out rather than be guided by a focussed action. Shot, seemingly, exclusively in the golden hour, the low (sun in sky, not low angle) sidelighting (weirdly, usually from the right) gave some great shots. There was some marvellous long takes of changing conditions of fog on the dark hills.
And the colours were perhaps the finest piece of work. Not showy, using a muted palette, we had great variations on kinds of blue, pastel, deep, and various reflections off. These were used with a warm orange tint. Indeed, even the blue seemed quite warm; perhaps this was because it was in contrast to the otherwise quite blank whites.
Popogrebsky clearly has a good eye; nothing too distinctive, a few complex shots used with one half of the frame light, the other dark, and some long shots of huts in the middle of the frame. Just generally; he frames well, and captures shapes well.
The plot is, admittedly, slightly predictable; I feel I have seen people hiding terrible news, anger and then reconciliation, before. We also had a continuation, which I failed to see much development of, of various recent Russian films juxtaposings of fatally weak, older 'nature' he-men and the more metropolitan, cowardly younger generation, and their interaction.