Letter Never Sent (Neotpravlennoye pismo)

LETTER NEVER SENT (Neotpravlennoye pismo)      B+                  

aka:  The Unmailed Letter 

Russia  (97 mi)  1960  d:  Mikhail Kalatozov

A rarely screened film, this is the third film collaboration between Kalatozov and his legendary cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, who was a front-line cameraman during WWII where he obviously learned the art of camera mobility from first hand experience literally decades before its time.  Urusevsky’s brilliant work in this film is notorious for having influenced several scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), most likely the speed of the camera as it whizzes through the Siberian forest remaining completely in focus capturing people running through natural environments.  Of note, on the night the film was screened, which began at 8 pm, there was a full lunar eclipse (2/20/08) NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse: February 20, 2008, reaching its peak for about one hour from 9 to 10 pm.  Conveniently, the Russian Cyrillic language was completely indecipherable by the student projectionists at Northwestern University’s Block Cinema who could not figure out how to do reel changes with so many ten-minute reels, causing them on two occasions to completely stop the film, turn on the lights, take a brief break and figure out how to organize the next segment before continuing.  This allowed the audience to run outside on a perfectly clear night in the frigid 5 degree winter temperatures to observe the natural phenomena happening in the sky.  For these incidents to have occurred during a film that revolves around man’s fragile relationship to the natural world around him felt like no accident, like the stars were all properly aligned.

In the spirit of pioneer exploration, dedicated to all the Soviet people, this film bears a similarity to Carroll Ballard’s NEVER CRY WOLF (1983), opening in the sky high above the clouds, a group of four Russian geologists are flown into a remote Siberian forest in search of what they believe will be an immense diamond vein.  Left on a riverbank with all their gear and equipment tossed in a heap, the camera is the viewpoint of the helicopter as it lifts into the sky and flies away, leaving them as tiny specks on the ground.  Tatyana Samojlova returns as Tanya, the only female of the group, making a large impression after she comes out of a swim with her nipples noticeably protruding.  This raises a certain amount of sexual tension as she is married to the feeblest man in the group, the intellectually inclined radio man Sabinine (Innokenti Smoktuvosky) who discovers Sergei (Yevgeni Urbansky), the man best acquainted with outdoor wilderness skills, may have his eye on her as well.  The fourth man appears to be the team leader and guide, the level-headed Andrei (Vasili Livanov).  Digging a series of holes in the ground, they may as well be digging their graves, as their search proves futile until Andrei convinces them to stay beyond their agreed upon duration, featuring a series of close up shots and a shirtless Sergei hoisting an ax, capturing a Dovzhenko-like rhythm of work until ultimately they find what they’re looking for.  They patriotically raise their glasses toasting the future pioneers of the Soviet space race, believing they have discovered a means to fund their mission.  

Despite several name actors, their influence is diminished by the rather sappy story, instead what can’t help capturing our attention is the physical appeal of that Urusevsky camera that never rests and some bold, over the top Russian music by Nikolai Kryukov, whose credits go back to the 30’s, actually helping revise musical scores in the late 40’s and 50’s for Eisenstein’s POTEMKIN (1925) and several early Pudovkin films.  The balance between the artistry is extremely effective as they do capture a Russian flavor that we see again in Tarkovsky’s Ivan's Childhood (1962), especially the scenes of men sloshing around the lakes and wetlands deep inside the Russian forests, featuring unforgettable images of birch trees and a recollection of music back home, but also that incredible train shot in Stalker (1979).  The optimism of the film is immediately upended when a huge forest fire breaks out and they need to make a desperate escape, discovering their boat is lost and their radio can’t transmit messages. Basically lost in what turns into a desolate Siberian wasteland, what follows is a lesson in survival as they are trapped inside the inferno of a burning forest that stretches for miles in every direction, eventually costing several of them their lives, ultimately running out of food and supplies, as their boots wear out, leaving them defenseless against the onset of ruthlessly brutal winter conditions that arrive in the blink of an eye, as fire suddenly turns to a river of ice.  The pace of the film slows to a crawl, resembling the monotonous pace of GERRY (2002), while also expressing the hopelessly unforgiving conditions in the finale of Masaki Kobayashi’s THE HUMAN CONDITION (1961), which this film may well have influenced.  The poetic beauty of the primeval wilderness belies its deadly capabilities, as humans occasionally are no match for the elements of nature, yet this film etches some of the more indelible images, reminders of how the earth once existed alone, immense, and untroubled by man’s presence.

The Cranes Are Flying (Letyat zhuravli)

THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Letyat zhuravli)          A               

Russia  (94 mi)  1957  d:  Mikhail Kalatozov

1956 was the 20th Congress of the Communist Party and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a speech denouncing Stalin and the Stalinist purges and the gulag labor systems, revealing information that was previously forbidden, publicly revealing horrible new truths, which opened the door for a new Soviet Cinema led by Mikhail Kalatozov, once Stalin’s head of film production.  This film features a Red Army that is NOT victorious, in fact they are encircled, in a retreat mode, with many people dying, including the hero, in a film set after 06-02-41, the German invasion of Russia when Germany introduced Operation Barbarossa, a blitzkrieg invasion intended to bring about a quick victory and the ultimate enslavement of the Slavs, and very nearly succeeded, actually getting within 20 miles of Moscow in what was a Red Army wipe out, a devastation of human losses, where throughout the war 22 to 26 million Russians died, or 15 – 20% of the entire population.  Historically, this was a moment of great trauma and suffering, a psychological shock to the Russian people, but the Red Army held and prolonged the war 4 more years until they were ultimately victorious.

During the war, Stalin used the war genre in films for obvious morale boosting, introducing female heroines who were ultra-patriotic and strong and idealistic, suggesting that if females could be so successful and patriotic, then Russia could expect at least as much from their soldiers.  Stalin eliminated the mass hero of the proletariat and replaced it with an individual, bold leader who was successful at killing many of the enemy, an obvious reference to Stalin himself, who was always portrayed in film as a bold, wise and victorious leader.  But Kalatozov changed this depiction, as THE CRANES ARE FLYING was made after Stalin’s death, creating a political thaw and causing a worldwide sensation, winning the Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or in 1958, as well as the Best Director and Best Actress (Tatyana Samojlova), reawakening the West to Soviet Cinema for the first time since Eisenstein’s IVAN THE TERRIBLE (1944) in the 40’s. 

Adapated by Viktor Rozov from his own play, this film features brilliant, breathtaking, and extremely mobile camera work from his extraordinary cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, using spectacular crane and tracking shots that literally glide through the streets, always creating an exhilarating sense of motion, featuring near hallucinogenic images of wartime, battlefields, also Moscow and crowded streets that are urgently vivid and real.  The story is simple, a couple blissfully in love are separated by the German invasion.  Boris (Aleksey Batalov) is called to the front leaving Veronica behind, who is superbly played by Tatyana Samojlova, who represents for Soviet films a more truthful character, asking Boris selfishly, “What about me?” when he announces he is off to war.  When Boris hears his father, a doctor at the hospital, consoling a wounded, demented soldier who wants an immediate end to his life because his girl married someone who stayed at home, his father tells him that it would be her disgrace, not his, as she would never know his bravery, describing such a woman:  “There will be no pardon for her.”

With Boris off to war, Veronica is chased by Boris’s cousin Mark (Aleksandr Shvorin), who uses his corrupt influence to get an exemption from serving in the army, eventually raping Veronica in a visually dizzying air raid sequence, where Veronica is under siege from Mark at the same time Russia is under siege from Germany, mirroring the war in her personal relationship, revealing the enemy within.  Losing one’s virginity was cause for marriage in Soviet society, which actually boosted Mark’s chances, particularly after not hearing from Boris after 4 years of war, so he was presumed dead.  But she hates Mark and retains her romantic yearning for Boris, as expressed in one of the many brilliant scenes when she actually exposes Mark cheating on her.  In perhaps the sequence of the film, her mind in utter turmoil, shot in a wintry bleakness, she runs towards a bridge with a train following closely behind her, a moment when the viewer is wondering if she might throw herself in front of that train in despair, but instead she saves a 3-year old boy also named Boris who was about to be hit by a car.

Another exceptional scene captures the death of Boris on the battlefield, who dies a senseless death, and his thoughts spin and whirl in a beautiful montage of trees, sky, leaves, all spinning in a kaleidoscope of his own thoughts and dreams, including his lost love, envisioning an imaginary wedding with Veronica.  This film features the famous line, “You can dream when the war is over.”  In the final sequence, when the war is finally over and soldiers are returning in a mass celebratory scene on the streets, where Veronica finally learns for certain that Boris died, all are happy and excited with the soldier’s return, but Veronica is in utter despair, passing out flowers to soldiers and strangers on the street in an extreme gesture of generosity and selflessness revealing with poetic insight “cranes white and gray floating in the sky.”

The film was released in 1957 in Russia, and according to some reviews, “the silence in the theater was profound, the wall between art and living life had fallen...and tears unlocked the doors.”