Good start, but then it gets ruined

Am I Missing Something?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Unpopular opinion here but I'd like to think I have the basis for not liking or totally endorsing a film that could be a minor masterpiece of its era. "Letters from a Dead Man" could be interpreted as a response to the Chernobyl disaster, which took place a few months prior to the film's release. It could also be viewed as a response to the American/UK films about the frequent nuclear disaster and possible outcome of atomic bombs being dropped to a nation. Director Konstantin Lopushanskiy's first feature film obviously couldn't been an attack to the Soviets, their delay in spreading the news to the world and the way they dealt with the whole situation. Instead, he creates an apocalyptical world post-nuclear attack and how people survive in shelters and watered pits, trying to live with their best means they can while men, women and children keep on dying or having to face strict control by their own people - for instance, when the kids aren't allowed to enter a more safer place. Doctors keep on doing their job but it's all hopeless and no one can get out to the surface to see what's left after the blast, a world turned into a red dust, shattered and with some military forces telling us that people aren't allowed to go outside unless they have a pass. The film's point of view is from a scientist who reflects about not only his conflicts about a major part in creating the technology that caused the world's collapse and killed humanity, or reduced it to a future death sentence but he also ponders about (in letters) to his missing son - who is probably dead - and reminds of how their life used to be. Simple yet frank letters, yet they don't carry a higher sense of usefulness or, in this case, I deeply wanted a sort of sentimentality. To me, those letters were just a nostalgia that led to nowhere. I cared more for the character when he despertaly tried to get out of the pit and try to look for his son then just keep reminiscing about a life that is no longer there. The "Stalker" like visuals are cool but they're empty and void without the master's visual touch and sublime poetry. Konstantin makes a noble and valuable effort, a direct message to the Cold War world and its constant paranoia of bombing each other, with threats more real year went by but there's something missing: it's heartless, a snooze fest that fails to convince and to make us immersed in its calamity, the tragedy.1980's. In the wake of similar themed works such as "The Day After", "Special Report", "Testament", "When the Wind Blows" and "Threads" (yet to be seen by me, despite hearing about this one being the most horrific and realistic of them all the forementioned films), this artistic Soviet response was bureacratic just as was the treatment given to the Chernoby disaster - in fact, this film comes as reply to the events that shook Ukraine on the same year and that's why it's so important to at least get a glimpse to this film. But the director's presentation is faulty, beyond claustrophobic and hard to make your heart pulse. Sure, "The Day After" contained some of those depressive qualities and we wonder if the world was going to end or continue after a nuclear fallout. But I was confused with "Letters...": for what I gathered it was an human error that detonated a nuclear device that turned everything into dust and radiation was spread, and government still found ways to control people with curfews, passes and contained people underground - pretty much what USSR would actually do in such scenario. I disagree about the artist quote about art being useless/pointless - in the film context, it sort of works that way, but thinking a little deeper, art would probably be the only source of comfort for those in better shape/health. Imagination is what keeps us alive. Lopushanskiy had a few of it but not strong enough to create a shock to the senses, a catalyst for a deeper reflection despite the several thoughts shared by the characters about life and what's left of it after a disaster. I felt tired, depressed beyond my usual ways and didn't find any of those letters to Erick compelling, hearted or with some deep meaning.For the most of it, I think most people are seeing way too much about the film's message. It's there but it's too convoluted and almost inaccessible to most audiences. And I film like that should have been a little more down to audiences's earth. Like I said, it could be a minor masterpiece to make us reflect about mankind, the powers of be and how Chernobyl, though not being a nuclear attack of a nation against the other, made a whole shift in the gear when it comes to what nuclear energy was helpful in some ways but a disastrous and terrible thing for the environment and its people. In some brief moments, the story went quite well in dealing with such notion but it's just half way, doesn't go the extra mile needed for a higher discussion. 5/10

Depressive in tone but with a hopeful optimism at its end, this film explores how human beings might survive the immediate aftermath of a nuclear bomb explosion that wipes out entire cities and all life above ground and renders the physical environment sterile and toxic. In such a setting people live without hope and watch one another disintegrate emotionally and mentally as well as physically. The bare and patchy plot centres around a physicist huddled with a few other survivors in a bunker beneath a museum after such a wipe-out. The physicist tends to his wife, dying from radiation sickness, and composes letters to their young son who was separated from them during the explosion and the chaos that followed, and is now missing. One day while searching for the boy and other survivors, the physicist meets a group of orphaned children, all traumatised by the explosion, and arranges for them all to go to a so-called Central Bunker where they might be cared for by government doctors. Martial law and a strict curfew have been imposed across the country and the physicist risks his life to get medicine for his wife; while he's gone, the wife dies. The remaining survivors in the museum bunker ponder their circumstances and try to cope with various rationalisation strategies. Eventually they're all ordered to go to the Central Bunker but the physicist elects to remain and moreover takes in the orphans when the Central Bunker rejects them for being sick.The plot depends heavily on the actors and their environment to convey its message and ideas. The actors have worn, sometimes craggy faces which portray hope, despair, anger and resignation in turns. The interior settings are dark and look cramped with primitive living conditions; exterior settings are dominated by roaring winds, the wreckage of buildings, cars and machines, puddles of toxic water and undecayed bodies. An air of oppression reinforced by helicopter and tank patrols and periodic megaphone announcements adds to the overall feeling of despair and hopelessness. Use of sepia tones in the filmstock emphasises the desolation and wretchedness of life and accentuates the strains of care and surviving on the actors' faces. Viewers see the details of soil texture, of water that looks like mercury and, in a flooded university library, of the wet pulp of paper and sodden towers of books. One scene in the film appears in shades of blue that highlight the secret and possibly illegal or dangerous work being done by two characters.The cinematography captures perfectly the small scale of human life in an extraordinary and extreme environment. It reaches its peak of morose and pessimistic expression in a Christmas scene in which the physicist and his orphans build a Christmas tree out of wire and industrial scrap and light candles on the tree. The camera draws back to show the scene in full: stark in its loneliness but beautiful all the same. It's like a small beacon of light in a never-ending black night. Viewers sense that the plot has reached its lowest point and from here on, hope may arise; it harks back to the pagan origin of Christmas as a mid-winter festival in which people celebrated the death of the old year and the birth of the new year. What happens to the physicist and the children next underlines this passing-of-the-torch motif.There are other moments of great beauty in the film: the nuclear disaster itself with its montage of cities on fire and being blown down by huge winds, over which a soprano sings and a child babbles in the background, is a memorable sight; and the orphaned children venturing out into the barren landscape and over the horizon beneath an overcast sky through which thin rays of sun shine is a very beautiful and moving scene. Even the sepia tones themselves lend a kind of golden aura over the actors and the sets as they bring out the harshness and desolation of the lives the characters lead.A few survivors declaim on the purpose and nature of humanity on Earth and where and how humanity went wrong somewhere so that the nuclear calamity was made possible. People were ambitious and greedy, they reached out and made things they didn't fully understand, they tried to know too much but lacked the wisdom and insight to control their knowledge and what they did with it … the physicist himself realises the calamity occurred accidentally in a way that's no-one's fault. Here is a message about the absurdity and fragility of existence and how one seemingly trivial yet universal event can set off a chain reaction that results in a nation-wide if not global tragedy. One survivor expounds his view that a new dog-eat-dog world without compassion will be built on the remains of the old one. Another survivor praises the achievements of the human species and then commits suicide. At one point in the film, the physicist expresses guilt that his work might have contributed to the nuclear disaster.In the end, hope is all the physicist has to sustain him: hope that his son is still alive, hope that his wife might survive long enough to see their son, hope that the orphaned children will also survive and help create a new world with new values that won't end in nuclear catastrophe. The children carry his hope as they trudge away from the museum bunker.This is a thoughtful film with scenes of great beauty and sadness.

This "Letters from a Dead Man" simply has got to be, hands down, one of the top three most depressing and pessimistic movies I ever encountered in my life. Of all Sci-Fi films dealing with remnants of life after the apocalypse – and believe me they are quite numerous – this Soviet Union produced sleeper upraises the most nightmarishly realistic and harrowing atmosphere ever. Even in your worst imaginable nightmares and premonitions, the post-nuclear existence probably still doesn't look as decayed and melancholic as illustrated here in this film. Survivors are forced to live underground, in the caves and catacombs of destroyed buildings, and have little else to do but watch each other fading away emotionally as well as physically. They can't go the surface without wearing special outfits and gas masks, but even then there's nothing else to do but stroll around between ruins, car wrecks and rotting corpses. With monotonous photography and the exclusive use of a yellow-tinted picture, director Konstantin Lopushansky (an acolyte of the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky) fabricates the ideally lugubrious ambiance, and he can also rely on the devoted cast and bleakly void screenplay to assist.The story revolves on Rolan Bykov as a scientist – former Nobel Price winner, even – who entrenched himself underneath the remnants of a library building along with his wife and a handful of co-workers. The titular letters are addressed to his son whom the scientist hasn't seen or heard from since the catastrophe. The letters and above all the hope his son is still alive somewhere is what keeps the poor man going, but how long can you hold on to hope when you see everything and everyone around you dying? "Letters from a Dead Man" is a difficult but ultimately very rewarding cinematic experience to endure. Difficult, of course, because of the emotionally devastating imagery and atmosphere, and because there's actually very little substantial content. We literally stare at a handful of people languishing and eventually dying, with only a small hint at hope near the end. And rewarding because of the depiction of genuine humane sentiments and the thought-provoking messages. It's also highly remarkable how "Letters from a Dead Man" remains continuously vague regarding the cause of the apocalypse and eventually even searches the guilt in the own heart. In a time where movies released on the other side of the Iron Curtain (in Europe and particularly the USA) routinely blamed Russia for the potentially upcoming apocalypse, this tale suggests the root cause of the catastrophe lies in a human error during the launch of a space shuttle. The entire cast gives away tremendous performances. I don't know if these people are veteran actors and actresses in their home countries, but their grimaces and catatonic behavior suggest that they were selected especially for this type of discouraging parable. Fantastic film; though obviously not fit for all occasions and/or audiences.

It took me some time to remember the title of this film, and it's certainly a hidden gem. In it's very slow pace, it transfers the mood of what will probably be if we went through a nuclear war. Great cinematography, and the quality of the film just makes it more profound and hipnotizing.If you find this film, take your time any rainy day, and drift away in a world of dead and dying.