Review: The Whaler Boy

Image courtesy of Film Movement.

Philipp Yuryev's strange coming-of-age odyssey "The Whaler Boy" is an example of atmosphere and locale going a long way to make up for the deficiencies of a film. This is a picture that is interesting by nature due to the place where it's set - Chukokta, a remote whaling village in the easternmost part of Russia - even when its story just sort of ambles along to the place where you figure it's going.

In the film, Indigenous teen Lyoshka (Vladimir Onokhov) lives in a village that is just under 90 miles to Alaska, and dreams of going to the United States. His dream is heightened when his village gets internet access, and the men there all flock to a web site featuring camgirls, or web cam models, who make money by engaging in sexual acts via web cam.

Lyoshka and his best pal, Kolyan (Vladimir Lyubimtsev), are both instantly taken with a blonde camgirl dressed in pink, and think that she is communicating (well, sort of), with them, although she never actually speaks to them. Lyoshka gets the idea that he should go to America to seek her out, while at the same time a rivalry begins with his friend, who also expresses a wish to meet the girl.

The film's remotely exotic locale, coupled with strange imagery - such as gigantic bones that Lyoshka stumbles upon during his journey to America or the ocean drenched in blood after the whalers kill a whale - and music that would seem at home in a David Lynch movie (Julee Cruise's "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart" pops up frequently) give the film an almost surreal vibe.

But the film stumbles a little as Lyoshka makes his journey to the United States. There's a scene that exudes some warmth when a U.S. border agent and Lyoshka nearly shoot one another after the former discovers the latter and then the two find a way to communicate, although it's particularly unbelievable how that plot thread ends.

There's also, most likely, something to be said about the corrupting effects of the internet on the isolated - both literally and figuratively - characters who come across it, but that is mostly left undeveloped. Also, a scene that provides the film with its most tension is later resolved easily - perhaps, too much so -in the picture's final moments. Ultimately, "The Whaler Boy" has a haunting visual quality to it, but the film's other elements don't compliment it as well as one might hope.