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6.8/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.8/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Alone remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like movies that feel like a cold breeze hitting your face, then yes, you should watch this. It’s perfect for people who enjoy visual storytelling and don't mind a bit of old-school propaganda mixed with actual human feeling.
If you hate slow pacing or black-and-white films where the sound occasionally goes wonky, you’ll probably want to skip it. It isn't exactly a popcorn flick. ❄️
The movie starts out so happy it’s almost suspicious. Yelena is graduating and she’s just so excited to be a teacher in Leningrad.
There is this great scene where she’s shopping for furniture with her fiancé, Petya. It reminded me a bit of the urban bustle you see in The Big Town, just with more 1930s Soviet vibes.
She has this daydream about teaching kids who are all perfectly clean and obedient. It’s cute, but you just know something is going to go wrong because the music is a little too bouncy.
Then the government steps in. They tell her she has to go to the Altai mountains in Siberia because that's where she's needed.
Her face just drops. It’s one of those moments where you feel the weight of the whole world hitting a person at once. 🏔️
Once she gets to the village, the movie completely changes its mood. It stops being a cute rom-com and becomes this survival story that feels very lonely.
The landscapes are incredible. I don’t know how they filmed some of this back then without everyone getting frostbite immediately.
There are these long shots of the wind blowing snow across the plains that made me want to grab a blanket. It's intense.
Yelena looks so small against the mountains. She’s trying to teach the local kids, but the local leader—the Bey—doesn't want her there at all.
There is a scene with a bunch of goats that goes on for a while. I’m not sure why there are so many goats, but they look very fluffy and very confused.
The music is by Shostakovich, and man, it’s loud. Sometimes it feels like the orchestra is trying to jump out of the screen and grab you.
It’s an early sound film, so the audio isn't perfect. Sometimes the voices sound like they are coming from the bottom of a well, but it adds to the dream-like feeling.
I noticed that the silence is actually more effective than the music sometimes. When the wind stops and it’s just her alone in the dark, it’s genuinely spooky.
It’s a bit like leaving everything behind, similar to the vibe in Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, but with more political pressure. She's not just leaving home; she's being displaced by an entire system.
The movie is called Alone, and it really makes you feel that. Even when people are around her, there is this gap between her and the village that never quite closes.
It’s not a perfect movie. Some of the acting is a bit too much, with lots of wide eyes and clutching of chests. 🎭
But those snowy shots... I can't get them out of my head. It’s a movie that stays with you because of how it looks rather than just what happens.
I think I liked the first half better than the second, mostly because the transition from the city to the wild was so jarring. It felt real.
Anyway, if you have 90 minutes and want to see what Siberia looked like in 1931, give it a look. Just make sure you have a heater running nearby. ☕
IMDb —
1919
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