As regular readers to this column (?!?) might realise, the writer is somewhat beguiled by the achievements of Soviet cinema. One aspect of cinema is that it has little option but to function within the parameters of the socio-political structure it inhabits. Because cinema makers on the whole need money. What emerges in Kalatozov’s work is perhaps a prioritisation of technique and aesthetic over content. Content is dangerous, it can get the filmmaker into trouble. Technique, on the other hand, in particular in cinema, a new art with fervent Bolshevik roots, permits an innovative freedom. With his crossfades and his heightened art direction, Kalatozov exercises this freedom with remarkable panache. The narrative of The Unsent Letter is straightforward. Four geologists are sent to the Siberian taiga to discover diamonds, which will be a key development in the industrialisation of the Soviet republic. After much fruitless searching and a certain amount of Chekhovian angst (one of the geologists, Andrey is engaged to another, Tanya, but a third, Sergey, develops a smouldering passion for Tanya), they do indeed discover the diamonds, charting the location. Mission accomplished, they prepare their two boats to head back downriver. However, the night of their departure, a terrifying forest fire strikes. The boats are lost, Sergey dies, and the remaining trio have to make their way out by foot. Planes fly overhead but can’t see them for the smoke. The radio packs up. Andey is wounded and cannot walk. A seemingly innocuous tale becomes darker and darker. It turns into a survival story (pace The Revenant). Who will live, who will perish? Given the prosaic nature of the narrative, it’s perhaps hard to see how the film can sustain itself over the course of the closing hour. If this was Hollywood, the cliches would be coming thick and fast. But Kalatozov pulls it off. This is deeply immersive cinema. The lingering smoke, the Siberian marshes, the onset of Winter snow, are all realised with a cinematic flair which captivates the viewer. The camera makes us the other party in this journey, albeit from the safety of our cinema seats. We urge the three characters to survive and mourn those who don’t.
Clearly there’s a hard-fought propaganda element to all this. The struggle of the Soviet peoples etcetera. The dream-montage which shows the development of the region has, to 21st century eyes, a dystopian air, pure nature subsumed by industry. Nevertheless, the pure skill of the filmmaking succeeds in ensuring that the human story, that of the heroic instinct to survival, supersedes any political preconceptions the viewer brings to the screen. The Unsent Letter is as gripping a film as one could imagine, which ranks alongside films like The Wages of Fear, Duel or Alien to reveal cinema’s capacity to immerse the viewer in a terrifying reality.
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