by Anuk Bavkist
Survivors take refuge in a museum cellar-turned-underground bunker. Lit by flickering light bulbs, they resemble the waking dead. Their daily routine finds them manually pedaling to generate electricity, digging their own graves and philosophizing the end of times. The surface above them is nothing more than an industrial wasteland littered with decomposing bodies and architectural ruins. Other survivors, equipped with heavy hazmat suits to shield themselves from an endless nuclear winter, still navigate the remains of their former city while an authoritative presence keeps watch in the form of patrolling helicopters and military raids. What caused the nuclear holocaust that left their existence in such disarray is never made clear, but is theorized to be the result of a computer error that launched a war missile (possibly an alternate future where Stanislav Petrov had actually responded to Oko’s false alarm in 1983). Our guide through this post apocalyptic nightmare is a grizzled old man referred only as “The Professor.” He spends much of his days caring for his sickly wife while going through the daily minutiae with the rest of the survivors under the museum. A Nobel Prize laureate and man of science who’s only real defense mechanism to the harsh reality in front him is mentally writing letters to his dead son, Erik.
Directed by arguably the most Tarkovskian of Tarkovsky’s disciples, Konstantin Lopushansky’s aesthetics traces back to his experiences an assistant director of his mentor’s own science fiction production, Stalker. This is evident from the film’s opening sequence: A meticulously choreographed long take that has the the camera slowly lingers from a close-up shot of an exposed light bulb to a wide shot revealing the Professor watching over his bed stricken wife, before closing the take on medium shot as the camera follows the Professor to a desk where he begins his first letter to his son. While Lopushansky understands of his mentor’s cinema is masterfully on display, it would be hard to mistaken Letters from a Dead Man for a Tarkvosky film. Lopushansky’s anti-utopian future, filmed almost entirely through a yellow filter to create a look suggesting a world forever on fire, is starker than anything Tarkovsky has ever captured on celluloid. Released 5 months after the horrific events in Chernobyl, Letters from a Dead Man offered a direct response to what his mentor seemed to have prophesized seven earlier.
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
The Tarkovsky influence seems pervading. This is the first time I have heard of this film, but my interest is piqued by this outstanding capsule review. Seems like a visual stunner of a film.
I’ve had this movie on my to-be-watched list for years. Your excellent capsule review reminds me that I should get my act together. For some reason I’d missed the Tarkovsky connection, which adds to the enticement of the movie. Many thanks.
Few films over the past six months or so have fascinated me in terms of expectations like this one has, and I was delighted that it managed to squeeze into this diverse equation of science fiction related works. Tarkovsky is certainly one of my favorite directors of all-time, and the theamtic kinship has me more than intrigued. Even our own movie guru Allan Fish yesterday admitted on a vague recollection, though he didnt at all dispute its considerable merit. I will get to it and as soon as possible. In the meantime I congratulate you Anu, for leading the charge for this obvious gem, and for penning a superlative capsule review in its defense!
Wonderful capsule, here’s what I wrote when I watched it yesterday so I could comment on this review:
“Through its striking visuals it tries to fill the void that it doesn’t want to be overly critical of the state of the world because the film might’ve been censored in Russia. Maybe times have changed, but the film, even if it tries hard to say that this isn’t the Soviet Union, thus shies away from becoming a more profound work of actual criticism, and thus becomes a testament to the strength of humanity and hope for the future, something I’m actually ok with, but that it feels like pulling the rug under the feet of those watching it, specially when it seemingly comes out of nowhere after 70 minutes of dread and sadness and kids crying”.
This one looks great. I’ve never seen or heard of this one before but will have to seek it out.
This is one of the most important of unknown movies. It must be shown in school and during the UN meetings. By the way, the director Lopushansky did somewhat of a spiritual sequel, ”A Visitor to a Museum” few years later.