Since the movie was initially meant to be a staged drama, it is no wonder it rings some bells. In the 1950's Sartre wrote his famous play "Huis clos" whose essential point was how intolerable human presence can be when the commonness of language allows us to understand all the thoughts of the people we share the same space with. "The Hell, this is the Other", concluded Sartre.
In Kukushka, nobody of the three characters understands a word from what the other two have to say, yet they DO speak all the time. All the three, the Finn, the Saami, and the Russian, are well aware of the presence of the other two, but do not have to submit themselves to any common pattern of judgment. The other two are like objects which fit the world of the third in the way s/he would like them to. Thus, the lack of verbal communication, even if it caused some, almost fatal, misunderstandings, in the long term offered the three characters with a kind of bliss not one of them had ever expected. In short, this is a story about the beauty of life which is essentially impossible to share with others because it is purely contemplative.
In Kukushka, nobody of the three characters understands a word from what the other two have to say, yet they DO speak all the time. All the three, the Finn, the Saami, and the Russian, are well aware of the presence of the other two, but do not have to submit themselves to any common pattern of judgment. The other two are like objects which fit the world of the third in the way s/he would like them to. Thus, the lack of verbal communication, even if it caused some, almost fatal, misunderstandings, in the long term offered the three characters with a kind of bliss not one of them had ever expected. In short, this is a story about the beauty of life which is essentially impossible to share with others because it is purely contemplative.