Film review: Bite The Dust

Directed by Taisia Igumentseva

Opening this year's London Russian Film Festival, and the only Russian film to appear at Cannes, Bite The Dust blends slapstick gags with apolcalyptic dread on a lakeside north Russian hamlet.

In Taisia Igumentseva's beautifully shot debut feature, the tiny rural community is jarred from its usual tedium by news of the impending apocalypse - caused by some sort of electrical mist.

The close-knit characters - including a Lenin-loving pensioner, a scrounger and a frustrated inventor - decide to see out their final evening on earth by gathering around a table to share food and vodka.

Equal measures of pathos and gallows humour eke out the truth about the decisions we make when there will be no consequences, and those we make when there will.

The craggy and windswept location, highlighted by foggy and naturalistic photography, ramp up the isolation which will greet us all if and when the end comes.