Published: 02 September 2010
by DAN CARRIER

ARTIST Sarah Turner has trained her lens on the fleeting images that passed her by as she took the Trans-Siberian train across Russia. It is a return to a journey she took 20 years previously and she uses this as a pretext to consider memory and loss, and how the past invades the present.

The film-maker is suffering from amnesia, caused by a head injury after a bike accident. Twenty years earlier she went on the Trans-Siberian train with her friend, who has since died, also due to a bike crash. She hopes by ­retracing their steps she will re-ignite memories. But the claustrophobia and heat get to the narrator, and in turn to the viewer. 

While all very worthy, no doubt, its painfully toned narration means it is too easy to switch off, thus negating the intended effect – at nearly two hours, watching this felt like taking a Trans-Siberian train at rush-hour.