The 1984 British TV movie 'Threads' seems to be somewhat of a minor cult oddity in certain parts of the internet. I mention this because Dead Man's Letters is essentially the Soviet response to that movie, a sulky grime-coated 80's production about a decayed world post-nuclear holocaust. The survivors live in ruins and rubble, run around the sepia-tinted fallout outside in rags and hazmat suits, then get sick and die...and that's it. Threads was an utter bore and its TV-production limitations really drag it down - nothing happens in that movie. People get sick from radiation and die and that's the whole entire movie; this was no more exciting. Dead Man's Letters has a bigger budget than many of its western counterparts of the decade, and they put it to a much more creatively cinematic use: yellow and blue-tinted cinematography, sets of Stalker-level industrial decay, scenes of fire and destruction scattered thru-out - but mostly it's just tired and worn people sitting and talking in shanty-town bunkers about their woes. Yawn.
Review of Dead Man's Letters
