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HerrSchreck wrote: Narratively, this isn't anywhere near as compelling as CRANES
but nonetheless maintains its grip on the viewer throughout the proceedings with spectacular location work and tight narrative unfolding. Between this and Salt for Svanetia coming to dvd it's nice to see more of this masters filmography getting distribution this year.

[wishfulthinking]Surely Salt for Svanetia is an obvious choice for the second Soviet Influence set from the BFI?[/wishfulthinking]

If not there's always the fFlcker Alliey set which recently came out ( which itself used a very old transfer of the filmi). . . doesn't appear that anyone is running a new transfer for SALT any time soon.

John Edmond wrote:[wishfulthinking]Surely Salt for Svanetia is an obvious choice for the second Soviet Influence set from the BFI?[/wishfulthinking]

How big an influence was it? Specifically on British filmmakers?

Can anyone translate this into English?

I expect that Letter Never Sent video was not abundantly tight via its theatrical run (Premiered at Cannes!) but despite that the content is intriguing in its own right.

Leave it to Tooze to call this of all films "[not a] masterpiece."

As long as we're piling on, I like his last sentence: "World cinema fans might be the primary target audience."

No Wal-Mart exclusive for this one, then!

Another puzzling aspect to this review is he identifies it as Region A (as one would expect) at the top but later:

my Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

Brian C wrote:As long as we're piling on, I like his last sentence: "World cinema fans might be the primary target audience."

No Wal-Mart exclusive for this one, then!

The irony here is that this is one of the most accessible foriegn films ever - just a classic man vs. nature pic.

I've already been burned by the Beev over Region A discs claimed to be region-free - though I suppose the upside of that is that I had one to hand when I bought a multi-region player.

There's also the possibility that it was a similar situation to the one with Winstanley, Ashes and Diamonds and The Tin Drum - i.e. where the review checkdisc is set to a different region from the final retail version.

Given the distributor, I'd say it's safe (and sane) to assume Region A unless confirmed otherwise by someone who definitely has the final retail version.

Blu-ray.com has an official review up, and they tend to be very reliable once that happens. They state that it's Region A.

Has Criterion ever released a region-free Blu-ray?

Nope. Planetaxel is another very reliable site when it comes region coding of BDs.

I sent an email over. He claims it was a copy & paste mistake.

Got this -- and have sampled it (but not watched it all the way through). Looks pretty gorgeous. If someone doesn't buy this release, I never want to hear that person complaining about Criterion's lack of adventurousness. ;~}

Is the film pretty good? I loved Cranes.

It is. It certainly looks gorgeous but I also found it a rather captivating survival film as well.

I thought its presentation of the Siberian wilderness was much more compelling (and visually stunning) that Kurosawa's (in Dersu Uzala).

The camera work is especially great I have to add. There are so many cool moments where the camera moves with the action of the film's protagonists that really stunned me. And I also have to agree with Michael on how its presented in comparison to Dersu Uzala.

I watched the Blu-Ray last week and while I found it visually stunning and the story, as you say, captivating, I found that the socialist propaganda was a bit overbearing.

Calvin wrote:I watched the Blu-Ray last week and while I found it visually stunning and the story, as you say, captivating, I found that the socialist propaganda was a bit overbearing.

An occupational hazard with Soviet films from the period. But ten years earlier it would have been a fully-fledged Socialist Realist effort, which would have been far worse.

I just went with it as well.

Spoiler

I'm sure it would have been objectionable if everyone put their own survival over getting the information about the diamonds easily to their "Comrades." What good would that be for the country!?

MichaelB wrote:An occupational hazard with Soviet films from the period. But ten years earlier it would have been a fully-fledged Socialist Realist effort, which would have been far worse.

More attenuated in many (but not all) Boris Barnet films than it was here. But I didn't find the patriotic slant bothersome at all here.

I also recently watched Kalatozov's 1969 The Red Tent (a co-production with the West) -- about an ill-fated Arctic exploration (Italian-led -- by dirigible). An interesting companion piece to LNS -- but the photography was not by S. Urusevsky and lacked that certain something extra SU brought to Kalatozov's films.

I actually find it a worthwhile enough brain excercise to here and there try to get into the mindset of the region and era to try to recreate them.. Experience another time and people for a spell... Totally safe excercise... And when not in the mood for that sorta thing, find it pretty easy to sort of take as a given and ( as the filmmakers themselves no doubt did) that the political requirements imposed upon the filmmakers where no more heartfelt than a for example a false happy ending a la the end of Dassin's THEIVES HIGHWAY. As LeVon said in DIXIE "Take what you need and ya leave the rest.."

As far as soviet propaganda goes, this film is a relatively light exercise in it. At least versus some more famous titles that are out there and celebrated for decades on Best Of lists. Don't miss this film... It's the absolute pinnacle of outdoor cinematography. . . Uresevsky was a magician and friggin acrobat.