Letter Never Sent (Neotpravlennoe pismo)
Directed by Mikhail Kalatazov
Written by Valeri Osipov, Grigori Koltunov, and Viktor Rozov
1950/USSR
Mosfilm
First viewing/Hulu
[box] “More than kisses, letters mingle souls.” ― John Donne[/box]
Director Kolotozov and cinematographer Sergey Urusevskiy created a series of some of the most breathtakingly beautiful images ever made. Unfortunately the love triangle turned disaster flick doesn’t take off.
Each summer a group of geologists goes to the Siberian wilderness to search for diamonds, so far without success. The story is framed by a long letter the lead geologist is writing to his wife back home. Since there is no way to send it, it is more or less a diary. The other people on the team are a bespectacled nerd-type and his beautiful girlfriend, Tanya, and a lusty young man named Sergei. Sergei is in love with Tanya (Tatyana Samoylova) and there is much unspoken tension as to whether Sergei will shoot the boyfriend or rape Tanya.
Before that issue can be resolved, however, the team is caught in a raging forest fire with a broken radio. Most of the film is devoted to their agonizing struggle to survive long enough to be rescued.
This movie is pure eye-candy and eye-candy is my favorite food. However, I longed for a little more. Both halves of the movie drag on and on. The survival story goes from bad to worse with little action or suspense. There’s a bit of propaganda thrown in to boot. Too bad.
Note: I watched this one out of sequence because IMDb changed the date of this film from 1959 to 1960 and I didn’t catch it. There doesn’t seem any rhyme or reason to how their system works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSloFAFCqY4
Trailer
