The Island

It is wartime and Anatoly, a sailor on a coal barge, is captured by the Nazis and forced into an act of cowardice for which there can be no forgiveness. Thirty years pass and word has spread about a mad holy man, Father Anatoly, who lives on an island and has the ability to perform miracles. Faced once with death, Anatoly clung feverishly to life at the cost of his soul, consumed by a terrible and enduring guilt. He now lives as a hermit, prankster, lunatic, and Christ-figure—a man who in his despair has learned of the need to believe in something bigger than himself. In Russian cinema this is the territory best associated with Tarkovsky, though Pavel Lungin has produced a transcendent study in which the colour has been leached from the world. The craggy faced protagonist is brought vividly alive by ex-rock star and now hermit, Petr Mamonov.

As Father Anatoly, Mamonov cuts an imposing figure in almost every frame: pious to the end, he is also a pariah. Balding, bearded and bedraggled, with decaying teeth and eccentric peccadilloes (most scandalously, he faces the wrong way in church), this living, breathing embodiment of guilt and grief will remain indelibly etched in the memory.

Dimitri Eipides, Toronto International Film Festival