Leaving Lenin

A funny and arresting portrait of a group of Welsh sixth-formers accidentally left to fend for themselves in a St Petersburg where the dissolution of the old certainties has landed the local youth in pretty much the same position. Detached from their teachers by the uncoupling of a train, these strangers in a strange land are suddenly charged with defining their emotional independence amid the emergent bohemia of a city in transition. Shooting on the hoof in the new Russia, Emlyn's camera displays an equal sense of discovery, negotiating leafy backwaters where the errant staff face ideological and marital upsets of their own. Although the film assays a grandiose overview of the relationship between artistic and personal freedoms, it works best as a witty but compassionate study of familiar types under pressure. Performed with assurance all the way, this is one to applaud.