The End of the Road

A Girl visits her grandmother in a country close to the Russian border in order to spend the Christmas with her. She has brought her video camera to record her grandmother telling of old times. But grandmother worries about the weather and making the bus and avoids her granddaughter’s questions. Together the two women visit the cemetery to light candles for grandfather, they wake through a sleepless night, chat over uneaten bread and wait for the bus. The Girl tries to find out what it was like when those Russian soldiers came but for grandmother’s memories of last week’s trip with the club to a glass factory, grandfather’s smoking habit, and finally his death are more readily shared than the Russian occupation during which she lost her home. As time passes, the old woman admits that talking of the displacement is too painful and the Girl finds a way to accept it. On boxing day, the Girl leaves alone to catch the bus to Helsinki. This is a quiet, poetic play about open questions between generations. Written in short lines with many repetitions, a lot remains unspoken of – yet, like in real life, a great deal happens between the lines. (Tinfo/Sunklo)