ANTHILL

On the outskirts of Tallinn, among the high-rise tenements of the Soviet-era settlement Lasnamäe, there stands an enormous parking garage. Seen from the outside, the five-story brick colossus from the 1980ies appears forbidding and empty, but a fascinating microcosm is hidden away on the inside, where there are more than 700 separate garages that are not merely used to store cars. Individuals from the neighbourhood, primarily Russian immigrants, have more or less set up house in the little boxes. Like a peep-box display from days of yore, Vladimir Loginov brings one curious cube after another to light, from junk rooms packed to the ceiling, scrupulously tidy workshops and hobby rooms to lovingly decorated living rooms, kitchens and even a sauna. The Tallinn-born director adapts the pacing of his film to the leisurely rhythms of the portrait’s subjects – parking garage security guards that collect mushrooms in their spare time or go to the flea market, young people that meet up to drink and sing, pensioners dancing at a birthday party. There’s no trace of the economic boom and internet hype associated with the Estonian capital to be found inside the parking garage. Quite to the contrary, time seems to have stood still for the last twenty years here, when the old gentlemen start patching their fish traps, or playing the fiddle or take some time out inside their Mercedes to listen to the tape deck...