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Pipeline, the latest documentary from director Vitaly Mansky, follows the course of the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline through Russia and into Europe. As the camera travels the length of the pipeline, the viewer is given an opportunity to look into the lives of the people and the landscapes in which the pipeline plays a central part.
Mansky ignores the geopolitical issues running beneath the surface, creating space for personal stories. Every place he visits in this road movie makes for a unique miniature: a frozen Siberian river, full of dead fish; a wedding in a dilapidated prefab building in Khabarovsk; an Orthodox mass in a disused train car; a discarded washing machine used as a doghouse; the desperate attempts to dig a grave in the frozen ground.

And at the other end of the pipeline, in Cologne, stores are full to the brim with products and food; there’s an endless carnival going on. Streets and houses glitter with electric lights. Yet, paradoxically, there’s no happiness in sight there either. There’s a kind of joyless, mundane fun. Glazed eyes, full of ignorance and a lack of awareness. "A night away, closer to death by a day", quips a Siberian babushka. It seems like the same goes for Cologne too – despite all of the European affluence on screen.
"I don’t think Western viewers are too happy that the film doesn’t depict the European way of life as something blissful compared to Russia", says Mansky.
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