Amaranth's #1 Film Selection for Edgar

Inspired by 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 and the viewer's senses,…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

A filmic masterpiece which drearily encapsulates a vision of humanity's end in a few days of radioactive mist. We see a man search for his son Eric, who constantly writes letters to but never successfully sends during the nuclear apocalypse (the letters give insight into his feelings, whether it be denial, optimism or despair, all narrated under a hopeless monotonous voice). Society slowly disintegrates into madness and hope fizzles into the abyss.

This film is completely tinted in blue, dirty brown and red, almost as if the main character's mind cannot add colours to the nightmarish totality of what he sees and also because of nuclear waste, whether it's memories of nukes going off, disintegrating buildings, dead bodies in mud,…

This is a nihilistic film about a post-nuclear apocalypse world. It's sad and unsettlingly realistic. It goes through great lengths to show what life would be like after a nuclear apocalypse. This has some of the most amazing sets I've seen in any movie. The entire movie is shot with a really grainy, damaged film that I feel could have been intentional since it added a lot to the intensity of the experience. This look made some parts look almost like a documentary. It's incredibly beautiful.

The director, Konstantin Lopushansky, was apparently a protégé of Tarkovsky. It's immediately clear that he took influence from the moment the movie starts. The film has the same sepia tone look that Stalker has,…

A nightmarish depiction of nuclear apocalypse and an aesthetic marvel. While there are many parallels between this and Obi, Oba, The End of Civilization, I can’t help but think that’s Obi, Oba worked on more levels and was ultimately the more effective film in getting its anti-nuclear message across. Regardless, both films are quite good and successful in different ways. 

Dead Man’s Letters is a sepia tone soaked depiction Russia in the aftermath of nuclear devastation, and it is also the first of a trilogy of films from Konstantin Lopushanskiy. I believe it is also inspired in part by the Chernobyl disaster, which surely as of imminent concern to Russians—and everyone else in the world—during 1986. As one might be…