Letter Never Sent

Mikhail Kalatozov's name is not usually included in the pantheon of great Russian directors, and Letter Never Sent serves as a reminder that this is a glaring oversight. Made two years after Kalatozov's Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Cranes Are Flying, this 1959 film about a team of geologists searching for diamonds in Siberia is a curious hybrid: a Soviet propaganda piece about heroic individuals (working for the collective good of the country) that becomes a riveting survival drama when they're overcome by a raging forest fire. As the lushly wooded landscape turns into an alien wasteland, Kalatozov's camera delicately dollies through the burning brush and wispy smoke, finding beauty in the devastation. The political message and a pre-disaster romantic triangle involving the team's guide, Sergei (Yevgeni Urbansky), and two of the scientists, Andrei and Tanya (Vasili Livanov, Tatyana Samojlova), take a definite backseat to the primal nature drama. In 1964, Kalatozov made I Am Cuba, which kicked off a reappraisal of the filmmaker after it was restored and revived in the 1990s with Martin Scorsese's endorsement. Letter Never Sent—the title refers to a missive that expedition leader Sabinine (Innokenti Smoktunovsky) writes to his wife—isn't quite as impressive, overall, but it is visually stunning. Debuting on DVD and Blu-ray, this handsome looking Criterion release features a booklet with an essay by film scholar Dina Iordanova. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)