Pipeline

The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod gas pipeline was laid in 1983. It connected the second-largest gas field in the world in Urengoy, West Siberia with the Western European market. The 4,500-kilometer (2,800-mile) pipeline has since become one of the Russian economy's most vital arteries, with Vladimir Putin claiming that gas and oil revenues are good for half of Russia's disposable capital. For 104 days, renowned director Vitaly Mansky and his crew traveled from the Siberian fringe of Europe through seven different countries to film life along the route connecting the two extremities of the continent. Not everybody benefits from Russia's gas wealth, and the daily struggle is palpable. Mansky sometimes records a story in a literal fashion, but more often he reveals himself as an observer attempting to link all those different lives in beautifully filmed scenes. He ignores the geopolitical issues running beneath the surface, creating space for personal stories. Every place he visits in this road movie makes for a unique miniature: a group of men pulling out a load of stinking dead fish from an ice-hole in freezing Siberia; a wedding celebration on the border between Asia and Europe; the desperate attempts to dig a grave in the frozen ground; and a traveling clergyman trying to get converts with a train for a church.