Viktor Mikhaylov

Wikipedia wrote:
Dead Man’s Letters (Russian: Письма мёртвого человека, romanized: Pis’ma myortvogo cheloveka), also known as Letters from a Dead Man, is a 1986 Soviet post-apocalyptic drama film directed and written by Konstantin Lopushansky. He wrote it along with Vyacheslav Rybakov and Boris Strugatsky. It marks his directorial debut.

The film was screened at the International Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1987 and received the FIPRESCI prize at the 35th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg.Read More »

The protagonist finds out that some children were left behind in a sinking school, and is slowly driven mad as he tries to save them. A parable on the theme of the Last Judgment, numerous catastrophic events reveal a certain ambiguity in their origins, accompanied by the terrible suspicion that the things going on are some kind of a performance or theatrical production.Read More »

Synopsis:
Civilization as we know it has been destroyed, but remnants remain. In this story, a man has set his heart on visiting a famous pre-apocalypse museum which is now isolated in the midst of a new sea, the result of the melting of the polar icecaps. Those who hold onto the remnants of the old civilization live in isolated settlements, and keep a tight rein on the more numerous mutants, whom they keep in concentration camps (except for those who pressed into duty as servants). The stranger, who is an odd looking man, is taken by these mutants as a long-awaited messiah, and he swiftly becomes involved in the mutant-liberation rebellion, leading his followers to a new land on the other side of the sea.Read More »

The protagonist finds out that some children were left behind in a sinking school, and is slowly driven mad as he tries to save them. A parable on the theme of the Last Judgment, numerous catastrophic events reveal a certain ambiguity in their origins, accompanied by the terrible suspicion that the things going on are some kind of a performance or theatrical production.Read More »

This Russian-French comedy examines the effects of capitalism and democracy upon a Russian peasant village. It was filmed in the rural village of Bezvodnoye, the setting of this film’s 1967 precursor “Asya’s Happiness.” The outspoken peasant woman Asya returns in this new episode which begins with her walking along a road explaining why democracy doesn’t work. Her husband is an alcoholic who lives with a gypsy. Her son works on the black market for the mob. He was part of a theft involving a rare golden egg from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Asya’s opinions seem to be well founded. In the village crime has increased, inflation is rising, and local authorities are ineffectual. Many locals are so angry at the town Capitalist for running his mill 24-hours per day that they stage a demonstration and begin waving pro-Communist banners. Asya’s pet chicken begins to grow and speak.Read More »

Quote:
Letters from a Dead Man is another film that deals with the theme of the nuclear nightmare. It falls into a mini-genre of nuclear holocaust film along with others such as On the Beach (1959), Dr Strangelove or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Fail-Safe (1964), The War Game (1965) et al. But what makes Letters from a Dead Man unique in this case is that the treatment is one that comes from the opposite side of the Iron Curtain. Every single other treatment of the nuclear holocaust theme was made in the West and comes based on the speculation (or at least implication) of what would happen if the bombs falling were coming from the Soviet side; this is one which shows everything from the other perspective. In both cases though, the films are almost identical in their treatment of the subject matter and are certainly agreed upon what an horrific experience the nuclear holocaust would be.Read More »