If international film aficionados are familiar with Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov at all, it is probably due to his 1957 Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film Letyat Zhuravli [English title: The Cranes Are Flying]. But he has also secured a place for himself in cinema history for his 1930 documentary Jim Shvante (Marili Svanets) [English title: Salt for Svanetia] and the visually dazzling, anti-American propaganda epic, presented in four vignettes, as I Am Cuba (1964). Often overlooked or ignored is Neotpravlennoye Pismo [English title: Letter Never Sent, 1960], which was criticized by some Russian critics as unnecessarily arty and underdeveloped in terms of its characters. Yet, seen today, the film works as a stirring, lyrical portrait of man vs. nature where the innovative black and white cinematography of Sergei Urusevsky overwhelms any agitprop messaging. Instead, the viewer is transported to a wild landscape where four explorers fight for their survival against the four unpredictable elements of nature – wind, water, fire and earth.
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