Purely Joyful Movie!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Masterful Movie

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Even now I wonder what the film's motive really was. From the start, the protagonist doesn't really have a goal. He seems to be a drifter landing a job as a train driver, but then the film doesn't give the character a goal. He simply finds ways to overcome obstacles in his way as he moves along. Having said this, though, for a film with little to no goal set for the main character, it was surprisingly interesting. Almost the entire film is set on trains, and I really loved that! This film will be an absolute feast for train enthusiasts. Vladimir Mashkov lent a wonderful charm to hard-ass character Ignat. Vladimir was an excellent choice for this role. The rest of the cast was also very good, and the cinematography was also excellent.

There is little about THE EDGE that is not extremely well done. The setting and props are authentic and make you want to pull up a blanket to keep Siberia out. The photography and editing are topnotch; e.g., no lazy cameras, obnoxious close-ups, etc. All characters act according to their described circumstances. I'd bet the script is great but of course I was limited to subtitles. But the most intriguing item about THE EDGE is the plot; i.e., the storyline. Arguably the tale twists but whatever such may be the two lead characters are single-minded and riveted to their goals. The IMDb (and I assume the film's) poster picture is misleading as it suggests some superhero-like character with a Transformer-sized train. Such is decidedly NOT the case. However, the actual train devise becomes even more thrilling because of a plot predicament I won't give away. If I haven't already said so the male and female leads give awesome performances. I rarely gush so much about a movie but how THE EDGE slipped under the critics radar baffles me. Doctor Zhivago has nothing on this film. I predict great things for Anjorka Strechel.

This movie was rather unusual but luckily in an original kind of way. A Russian movie, set right after WW II, in which trains play a very central role. This doesn't really sound like your typical and average movie! So yes, the movie and its story in general are quite unusual and original but this still would had all meant very little if the movie wasn't a good or interesting one to watch. And luckily the movie is really an interesting watch. It actually features a very simplistic and straight-forward story in it but things get developed and handled well and add to this the fact that the movie features some great characters in it.It really isn't a very exciting movie story- or action-wise but yet the movie still feels that way. It's because the movie has a good pace, which is probably because it's a movie in with the main character is always on the move, with or without his locomotive.Yes, it's quite amazing, the central role that trains play in this movie. They form an important aspect of the story and sort of become characters themselves in the movie. I know there are probably plenty of train lovers out there, who will get a blast out of seeing this movie, with all types of old Soviet locomotives in it.But also otherwise this movie has plenty to offer. It's a nice 'little' type of movie, with humane characters and realistic events and emotions, while the movie still manages to go over-the-top with things and becomes an entertaining one to watch as well. It's hard to label this movie because it's doing so much and it's doing about everything in its own way.One thing that the movie also has really going for it is its look. It has a great and grand sort of look over it, that makes this movie feel authentic as well as slightly epic. I liked the visual style and the fact that for a change it didn't just portrayed the Siberian hinterland as a cold, white and gray, depressing sort of place. The movie is actually quite colorful, without using that much colors really, as strange as that might sound.A good and also original watch but I really wouldn't go as far as calling this movie a great one or a must-see. It's just a tad bit too simplistic and straight-forward for that.7/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Just after World War II, Ignat, a Soviet war hero, arrives at a Gulag camp in a remote section of Siberia, in order to try to handle a steam locomotive that is there. Soon he takes as his lover one of the prisoners, the pretty Sofia. Eventually, Ignat is told another locomotive is in an uninhabited forbidden island in a lake near the camp. When he goes to recover the locomotive, he finds a wild girl is living there, a German named Elsa who has been hiding there since the war started and the Russians killed her family (she is played by the pretty German actress Anjorka Strechel; unfortunately, it's hard to see her beauty in the movie since most of the time she is covered in dirt and dressed with shabby clothes). Ignat brings Elsa back to the camp in the broken locomotive, and soon sparks will fly between Elsa and Sofia for the love of Ignat. Since I love trains and snowy forests, I should have like this more, but it is hurt by very arbitrary plot points and a weak script. The train motif here seems a bit thrown in (why is there a train in the camp, anyway). I don't know if the portrayal of the Gulag camp is realistic, but in the movie it doesn't look as such a terrible place (when, in fact, hundreds of thousands of people if not millions die in the Gulag camps for otherwise treatable illnesses, malnutrition, exposure to the elements, etc.). Lots of Russian machismo in the movie as well, with the male characters hitting each other hard at the faintest of motives. The movie most memorable scene, that finally makes it worth watching, is a nude cat fight between Elsa and Sofia, with all the other naked woman in the camp watching.