Post by petrolino on Dec 9, 2017 1:18:07 GMT
In the survival picture 'Letter Never Sent', four geologists search for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia : expedition leader Sabinin (Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy), experienced tour guide Sergey (Evgeniy Urbanskiy), spiritual rock reader Tanya (Tatyana Samoylova) and delicate diarist Andrey (Vasiliy Livanov).
'Letter Never Sent' is an existential adventure through time that captures the harsh beauty of the Siberian plains, the stubborn sensibility of the region's streams and the cruel isolation of the wilderness. It's extraordinarily beautiful if you can appreciate such a hostile landscape. The story is beyond basic but the emotions are clearly real as the performers are left out in the wilderness.
"Nature guards its secrets rather jealously."
'Poeme Satanique Op. 36.' by Alexander Scriabin performed by Valentina Lisitsa
'Letter Never Sent' is an existential adventure through time that captures the harsh beauty of the Siberian plains, the stubborn sensibility of the region's streams and the cruel isolation of the wilderness. It's extraordinarily beautiful if you can appreciate such a hostile landscape. The story is beyond basic but the emotions are clearly real as the performers are left out in the wilderness.
"Watching the 1959 Soviet film Letter Never Sent (aka The Unsent Letter), directed by Mikhail Kalatozov and lensed by his brilliant director of photography Sergei Urusevsky, it struck me over and over again how inventive and evocative the shots were and how stale modern film language can be. Whether its a sharply contrasted deep-focus shot with a close-up profile of a weather-beaten face (Innokenti Smoktunovsky) in the foreground and a silhouetted rescuer descending the ladder from a helicopter or a meticulously choreographed handheld shot that follows four Soviet geologists through the brush and puts you right there with them, Letter Never Sent (or Neotpravlennoye Pismo) is a visual wonder for all of its 96-minute running time. Mikhail Kalatozov is famous for his 1957 Palme d’Or-winning war drama The Cranes Are Flying and I Am Cuba, his semi-hallucinogenic 1964 celebration of the Cuban Revolution. But Letter Never Sent is the overlooked movie that was sandwiched right in between. What is remarkable is how quickly Letter Never Sent can whip from being a realistic survival story to an impressionistic one, sometimes within the same minute. The cinematography is also shifting POV constantly. In one frantic scene of our heroes digging desperately, it goes from menacing low-angle shots to ones that mirror the action of the pick-axes from above."
- Eric Melin, Scene Stealers
"While J.J. Abrams‘ upcoming “Star Wars: Episode 7” doesn’t have a formal, non-generic title yet, the spotlight now turns to Rian Johnson‘s “Star Wars: Episode 8.” With the filmmaker tapped to write and direct that installment and to write the treatment for “Star Wars: Episode 9,” he’s diving deep into the George Lucas created universe. And while he’s likely sitting on all kinds of spoiler-y details, he recently shared a couple of clues that will give super-fans something to chew on. Appearing on a Filmspotting podcast (via Chicago Sun-Times), the director was humble regarding his “Star Wars” job. “I can only assume it was a clerical error, like in the movie ‘Brazil.’ There’s a Brian Johnson out there who is really mad,” he said. Johnson went on to reveal that he and his crew have been holding nightly screenings, mentioning Henry King‘s “Twelve O’Clock High” starring Gregory Peck, and Mikhail Kalatozov‘s “Letter Never Sent” among the recent choices. And while we really doubt that “Star Wars: Episode 8” will resemble either in its finished form —one concerns a tough as nails WWII commander whipping his team into shape, the other regards four geologists trapped in a giant forest fire— we’d wager Johnson wants his team to adapt the tones and textures of those films into blockbuster dimensions."
- Kevin Jagernauth, IndieWire
- Eric Melin, Scene Stealers
"While J.J. Abrams‘ upcoming “Star Wars: Episode 7” doesn’t have a formal, non-generic title yet, the spotlight now turns to Rian Johnson‘s “Star Wars: Episode 8.” With the filmmaker tapped to write and direct that installment and to write the treatment for “Star Wars: Episode 9,” he’s diving deep into the George Lucas created universe. And while he’s likely sitting on all kinds of spoiler-y details, he recently shared a couple of clues that will give super-fans something to chew on. Appearing on a Filmspotting podcast (via Chicago Sun-Times), the director was humble regarding his “Star Wars” job. “I can only assume it was a clerical error, like in the movie ‘Brazil.’ There’s a Brian Johnson out there who is really mad,” he said. Johnson went on to reveal that he and his crew have been holding nightly screenings, mentioning Henry King‘s “Twelve O’Clock High” starring Gregory Peck, and Mikhail Kalatozov‘s “Letter Never Sent” among the recent choices. And while we really doubt that “Star Wars: Episode 8” will resemble either in its finished form —one concerns a tough as nails WWII commander whipping his team into shape, the other regards four geologists trapped in a giant forest fire— we’d wager Johnson wants his team to adapt the tones and textures of those films into blockbuster dimensions."
- Kevin Jagernauth, IndieWire
