This is a film that can leave you breathless. I have watched it three times in three days and couldn't take my mind off it for a while. I remember that only Dostoievski's Crime and Punishment had had such a strong effect on me when I was a teenager. This is the story of a miserable, coward traitor who, through repentance, turns his life into an exemplary one. The acting of Pyotry Mamonov is effortless and simply superb. In my opinion, Ostrov is accessible to anyone and it is not at all a movie for the initiated in orthodoxy. As a matter of fact, I don't think it is so much about Orthodoxy itself, but rather about that encounter, that event that takes place in a human life and that can happen anywhere, anytime.
Review of The Island
