Review of The Island (2007) by Cyril K — 07 Jul 2011

The interesting part of this film is that it was made by a Russian State appartus. It is completely sympathetic to a point of view which was long persecuted in Russia since 1917.

The symbolism employed by the film of this man working out his salvation by shoveling out the coal in his run aground tubboat is lyrically powerful.

Shipwrecked like an Orthodox Robinson Curusoe, he builds a dock out to the ship, and as he exhausts the coal in the various holds of the ship, his life is nearing its end.

We're all shipwrecked here, many of us children, and the path of Holiness that we take is how we build a ladder to heaven and climb up to it with the help of Angels and Saints, who we can see through windows into heaven in the Icons of their serene faces.