LETTERS FROM A DEAD MAN

USSR, 1986, 88 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Konstantin Luposhansky.

Letters from a Dead Man is a Russian nuclear fable, made on a small budget, photographed in sepia/black and white but which was given international release. It is dark and grim in its presentation of a post-nuclear holocaust world. It evokes memories of such files as The Mad Max series - while remaining in a sombre reflective mood. The film focuses on hope in this post nuclear world, despite all the grim experiences that the survivors have.

1. A futuristic fable? Elegy for a past world? Science fiction and fantasy? Vision and hope? Critic of the previous world?

2. Sepia/black and white photography? The future? Sets and decor? Light and darkness? the musical score and its mood.

3. The title and its irony? The situation, the professor, his letters voiced to his son, memories, heritage, the gift to his heirs? The final voice over and memories of legend?

4. Imagining a future, grim, destructive, yet with hope?

5. The professor and his situation, the letters, his reflections, hopes? In action? His character, the Noble Prize, the situation, the bunkers, the museum, Anna and her illness? Search for his son? The museum and the discovery of the group, the children? The pathos of Anna's death and his coping? The pastors death? The girl? taking charge of the children, leading them(masked) to some kind of future? The Christmas tree and the decoration?

6. The holocaust, accident, devastation, radiation? Curfews, the bunkers, the medical compassion? Survivors? Young and old? Ways of communication? Rules? Reflections on the transient of experience, of art, of theory?

7. The professor and his beliefs, theory, hopes?

8. The group, the children, the pastor, his death, the girl?

9. The details of life in this future age? routines? Life add Death? Relationships? The poetic/realistic treatment of these themes?

10. The final images of hope, Christmas - and the voice of legend?