Letters from a Dead Man

The rich tradition of Soviet cinema does not seem to have stopped with Tarkovsky. Both Klimov and Lopushansky confirm that in the USSR there can still be produced films of timely significance and great artistic beauty. Letters from a Dead Man, Lopushansky's first feature demonstrates this with a remarkable committment to the artistic heritage of one of the greatest cinematic traditions and a disarming sensitivity as to contemporary issues.

The film deals with what are the remains of a nuclear holocaust resulted from a computer error. Some survivors who have sought refuge in a museum are joined by a scientist. His wife and son have perished during the explosion, and the scientist in search of medicine goes out only to encounter the appalling consequences of the holocaust: burnt vehicles and decomposing bodies form the picture of a landscape devoid af any human life. In his return to the museum and realizing that he is infected from radiation and that he's dying, he tries to restore hope to some children who are struggling to survive. He soon though dies, and in what is a truly staggering climactic scene, the children wearing oxygen masks wander through an alien landscape towards whatever future they may have...

The fact that Lopushansky was an assistant on Tarkovsky's Stalker, is evident in both the thematic and stylistic features of the film. Again, we get the picture of the lonely scientist who wanders in a devastating landscape in Stalker, the Zone - in search of hope. As in most films by Tarkovsky and by most of the Soviet filmmakers, Letters from a Dead Man is characterized by a deep-seated pessimism inherent in the Soviet consciousness which is juxtaposed with the profound religiousness - Christian mysticism - typical of the Soviet cinema. Stylistically, it is also reminiscent of Tarkovsky's vision of our world. It may be perhaps a bit premature to hail it as a masterpiece, but it is certainly a very impressive film, resonant in its philosophy and very moving in the emotion impact it generates.

Review by Spiros Gangas
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993-94