Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Letter Never Sent (1959)


Original title: Neotpravlennoye Pismo
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Writers: Grigori Koltunov, Valeri Osipov (screenplay)
Stars: Tatyana Samoylova, Evgeniy Urbanskiy, Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy

The great Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov, known for his virtuosic, emotionally gripping films, perhaps never made a more visually astonishing one than Letter Never Sent. This absorbing tale of exploration and survival concerns the four members of a geological expedition, who are stranded in the bleak and unforgiving Siberian wilderness while on a mission to find diamonds. Luxuriating in wide-angle beauty and featuring one daring shot after another (the brilliant cinematography is by Kalatozov’s frequent collaborator Sergei Urusevsky), Letter Never Sent is a fascinating piece of cinematic history and a universal adventure of the highest order.

No comments:

Post a Comment