Russian/Soviet Films on the Cold War

[A.Smith]

Dear Charles Arndt,
  
It might be of some help to your student to find out more about one
dystopian film produced by Konstantin Lopushansky (he was  a student of
Tarkovsky; he lives in St Petersburg):
LETTERS FROM A DEAD MAN / PISMA MYORTVOGO CHELOVEKA
Konstantin Lopushansky, 1986; 88m

Lopushansky worked on this film for several years. It reflects on some Cold
War anxieties expressed in Soviet media and education in the 1980s regards a
possibility of nuclear war.
If your student is also interested in WW2, then it is worth watching
Lopushansky's film "Solo" (1980; 29 minutes) [his graduate work supervised
by Tarkovsky, about one musician preparing to take part in a BBC radio
broadcast of Russian music]. It is an  interesting attempt to talk about the
Leningrad blockade in a truthful way.


Best, 
Alexandra Smith

PS.
Here is a passage regards this film from:
http://seagullfilms.com/htm/anotherrussia.htm

The film's genre as "anti-utopia." Whether or not such a genre exists, a
more apt description of Lopushansky's film can't be imagined. Assistant to
Tarkovsky on Stalker, Lopushansky continues and evolves that imagination of
a postapocalyptic world. A mishap sets off nuclear war, and years later the
few wretched survivors struggle to cling to whatever life is still available
to them. Many of the surviving children have been left mute, and they and
others deemed unfit are left to die from the slow effects of the lingering
radiation. Meanwhile, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Larsen (Rolan Bykov),
who sees himself as responsible for what has happened, composes imaginary
letters to his dead son, Eric. The film is short on special effects but rich
in texture and ideas; winner of 14 international prizes, LETTERS so
impressed Ted Turner that he arranged to have the film broadcast on TNT.

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