1986 ‘Письма мертвого человека’ Directed by Konstantin Lopushansky
In a world after the nuclear apocalypse a scholar helps a small group of children and adults survive, staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. In his mind he writes letters to his son — though it is obvious that they will never be read.
Письма мёртвого человека, Pisma Myortvogo Cheloveka, Brieven van een Dode Man, Les Lettres d'un homme mort, Letters from a Dead Man
Amaranth's #1 Film Selection for Edgar
Shockingly released a few months before the Chernobyl incident, and in the middle of a decade that released several cinematic anti-nuclear manifestos around the world, Andrei Tarkovsky's protégé directs and produces what is potentially the best contemplative, post-apocalyptic, thought-provoking masterpiece that deals directly with the meaning of being human through the exposure of our nature and weaknesses.
Proportionally to the unprecedented poetically powerful visions of suffering featured in Begotten (1990) are the visions of destruction and isolation portrayed in Konstantin Lopushansky's ode to humanity. Beneath the desolate wastelands and piles of bodies, beyond the extremely dangerous death conditions in the exterior, beyond the images of explosions, bullets and flames engulfing all forms of life…
“Mankind was a tragic species, doomed perhaps from the very beginning.”
Following his work as assistant to Tarkovsky on Stalker, Lopushansky eventually went on to make his own Strugatsky backed sci-fi masterpiece. While similar to Tarkovsky’s Stalker aesthetically, Dead Man’s Letters is an entirely original film. A post-apocalyptic document of decay and uncertainty, one that will forever haunt me.
“And love created art, an art which reflects our unbearable yearning for perfection, our immense despair, our endless cry of terror...”
The eventuality of a man-made apocalypse is not in dispute it's only a matter of when! We have been virtually sentenced to deathrow awaiting a dead man walkings fate! Man's unchecked hubris and greed has led us down this prickly primrose path!
Konstantin Lopushansky's directorial debut Dead Man's Letters addresses these issues with a frankness that not only calls mankind out for its weaknesses but it does so with great humility by way of a message from one dead man to another! If we don't heed the lessons they learned much too late and change our course we too will be condemned to the same insufferable fate!
Immensely profound, devastatingly grim and brutally frank! I can't help but think those…
I don't have the whole historical perspective yet. I'm still studying, but what I know is that socialism, real socialism, is rooted in a scientific approach, one that continually tries to improve upon itself, rooted in dialectical materialism and a strong understanding of economics, politics, and history. There was a reverence in the Soviet Union for science even before it was born in the fires of revolution. The conditions that brought them to the development of nuclear weapons was the same as any other communist country's military developments: in defense against the unending capitalist greed of imperialism and its direct attempts to destroy... anything and everything, really. "Mutually assured destruction" is a defensive strategy that continues to be horrifying as…
Apocalypse Tarkovsky. Intense nightmare scenario that feverishly sent me into a bleak, doom ridden, apocalyptic mindset. Next stop, no hopes-ville.
Glad to be branching out my Russian film reach with the great Nick Langdon. Check out his review on this film as well!
Parallel to fellow Russian auteur Tarkovsky in his technical facets, Konstantin Lopuchansky has created a great post-apocalyptic piece spawned from the depths of thick, greasy nihilism. 1986 coincidentally gave us Tarkovsky’s final film in The Sacrifice too, which just so happens to focus on the advent of WW3.
The Sacrifice, of course, is much deeper than the onset of war and acutely focuses on the common Tarkovsky themes of legacy and home. Dead Man’s Letters, in a more indirect way, focuses on legacy as well—really hammering home how utterly awful humans are to have screwed up the world so much in…
This film is a philosophical exposé about the state of mankind. It initially appeals to the mind, only to go for the heart in the last 15 minutes and thus leaving a lasting impression that affected me deeply.
The post apocalyptic world we are presented here is given us through a Russian lens. That provides for a unique perspective. The colour palette of this film is very limited and that really adds to the sense of sobriety and stoicism this film wants to bring across. That and the shifting in scenes from the almost claustrophobic ruin of the museum to the chaos and destruction topside are very oppressing and are clearly meant to convey a feeling of desperation and hopelessness.…
Film reviews in 22 sentences (or less)
Today: Dead Man‘s Letters
"This is what I say: I loved mankind. I love it even better now that it no longer exists."
(Unknown)
Hi everybody, we watched another great soviet movie. It shows its first great impact thru the sepia filter that lies over almost every scene of this pictures. This movie looks toxic right from the start and you don’t need to know why, but you immediately feel the spirit of catastrophes like Chernobyl or Fukushima. The topic of the nuclear nightmare brought us masterpieces like "Dr Strangelove or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", or „Stalker“ and it's exactly this Soviet classic that seems to be…
Dystopian, doom-laden Soviet-arthouse dreadcore; Konstantin Lopushansky‘s debut Dead Man’s Letters is apocalyptic existentialism at its most bleak and hopeless for most of its 83 minute runtime. A professor living in the basement of a bombed-out museum alongside his terminally-ill wife and several surviving museum employees tries to cope with life after a devastating nuclear war by writing letters to his presumably dead son, which provide a bulk of the film’s dialogue in the form of an off screen narration. He believes that life will continue somehow, someway, despite all of the terrible fallout and turmoil that has occurred. The rest of the basement inhabitants, though, are not so sure. Humanity is lamented through causality and exposure of the “slow suicide” we’ve…
If you’re looking to cement your status as resident Movie God, the next time you host a Mad Max marathon for your friends, slide Dead Man’s Letters in right after The Road Warrior for a seamless origin story of The Lost Tribe, whose arc continues from this directly into Beyond Thunderdome.
Trust me... it’ll fucking KILL.
Thanks to Klop_Gob for an astute recommendation. I’m usually convinced when anything’s called Tarkovskyesque, a great weakness of mine second only to, well, Tarkovsky.
The comparison’s apt. Poetic and contemplative, Dead Man’s Letters may just as well read as Dead Mankind’s Letters, documenting the remnants of homo sapiens following a horrific nuclear fallout (Col. Jessup would say “Is there another kind?”). The black-and-white film toggles between bluish and yellowish tints, both of them extremely rough and spotty; this is sometimes to the movie’s detriment, but more often than not makes it look like this celluloid itself survived a nuclear disaster.
This is one of the most grim films I’ve ever seen, and the two crucial monologues deep into the movie (one humane and solid, the other robotic and nonsensical) are a painful but well-done conclusion. Hard to watch, but these letters were worth the read.
