Letter to Brezhnev (1986)

A Fairy (Tale) across the Mersey....

This film seems dated now -- people who came of age after the collapse of the Soviet Union, won't understand what all the "fuss" was about. So what if an unemployed girl from Liverpool wanted to move to the USSR? But this was filmed during the early 80's still in the Cold War, and Westerners were not supposed to want to move to the USSR. The movie suggests that Thatcher's England, with its workers on the dole, wasn't any better than life in the Soviet Union. In fact, even your personal freedom wasn't worth much without money and hope for the future.Extreme? Yes, of course. Ask any Soviet citizen in 1979 where they would rather have lived, in the West, or under the totalitarian grip of the Soviet Union. By the '80s, the USSR was a failure on the verge of collapse but still a threat (after all, in 1980 it invaded Afghanistan). But all that is beside the point.

This film is about working class Liverpool and the dull, hopeless lives of two of its young women. Elaine and Teresa are bored out of their wits: their lives revolve around promiscuous sex, drinking, and an occassional night out at their drab, local disco. One night, they meet two Russian sailors. Though broke, they steal a wallet with enough money to pay for a hotel room. Teresa has one night of unadulterated sex with her Russian sailor who speaks no English; Elaine, on the other hand, simply spends the night talking to her Russian sailor and falls in love. After the ship leaves, she vows to see him again. When she realizes she can't visit him in Russia, she writes a "letter to Brezhnev" asking him to let her visit Russia and be with her Peter. The Premier sends her a ticket and she becomes a local --and controversial -- celebrity.

This is a charming film if only for the characters of Elaine and Teresa. The Liverpool accents make it clear just how much in common Liverpool has with Ireland. Though these good-time girls are out to have fun, it's only a mask for their empty, melancholy, dead-end lives. But one wonders why they didn't go to school, why they gave up on life so easily, why they didn't have any dreams or aspirations? Was Liverpool as bad as that? Didn't they have any choices at all? In some ways the movie doesn't try to explain the socio-economic problems -- it only says: "this is how it is." But one does get the feeling that after a couple of months of unemployment, freezing dark weather, Russian life sans fish and chips and MTV, Elaine will get bored will find herself traipsing back to Britain. Would Elaine have the patience and dedication needed to study Russian and adopt herself to life there? And this question lingers: is the emptiness in the lives of these two girls an emptiness that can be filled with a move to another country? Or is it a vacuum well within the girls themselves? It's these lingering questions that makes the movie relevant today. June 22, 2006

All you need is Love, love. Love is all you need

I have wanted to write this review for a long time. In fact for over twenty years since I first saw this wonderful film I have wanted to share my views with someone. Now, living in the United States where the film is only available on VHS, I am able to write it.

This is a lovely little love story but despite that I absolutely love it. I used the film in economics and sociology lectures to illustrate a number of different socio-economic and historic processes but throughout this is an unashamed love story.

The backdrop for the movie is the almost unemployed port of Liverpool, once the gateway to the West, and now an almost industrial museum set against the backdrop of the Liver building and Paddy's wigwam. The time is the early 80's where the decimation of manufacturing industry through exposure to competitive economic global forces through the policies of the Labour government under Chancellor Healey, followed by the Thatcher government under Chancellor Howe, resulted in mushrooming structural unemployment. As the characters emerge from the soulless housing estates thrown up since the 1960's such as Skelmersdale where this writer spent a year whilst undergoing teacher training, we see the nasty and brutal existance forced upon young people as the techno pop of the new romantics pulsates in the background in a somewhat escapist mode. Survival is the key but there is more to life than being unemployed or plucking chickens as the inhabitants of my home town Sunderland celebrate in the pubs and clubs on weekends when the paycheck or unemployment payment arrives.

The story of the chance meeting in a bar and love at first sight followed by a night in a quayside hotel is a story played out in many towns and cities throughout the British isles but whereas the relationships established generally lead to a grim perpetuation of the existing circumstances in this case one of our heroes has a dream.

Realising a dream is fraught with problems, especially when the general demeanour of a country is totally opposed to that of another. In this case our Kirby girl falls for a Soviet sailor who happens to be Russian and once his ship departs she discovers the harsh reakity of living in a bureaucratic centralised state, ie Britain. To achieve success she must battle lies and spin, fight the government and the press and become a pawn in a propaganda battle which ends with the victory of the soviet government who enable the reunion of the two lovers behind an iron curtain.

There is much in this movie, the escapism and the fantasy. The brief intimate interludes which punctuate the dreary drudge of life in a factory in soulless towns. The centrality of a family unit in cramped conditions where relationships are fraught and edgy. The dreams and realities of an intelligent young woman with little educational success in an environment of competition for few eligible males which is often vicious. One of the most illuminating scenes is towards the very end of the movie where the hardened friend is wishing Elaine goodbye at the airport and her veneer cracks when she is alone. My only complaint is the seagulls which normally follow the ferry across the Mersey could not look more fake than on this movie.

After spending a year near Merseyside I can say that I found the people there to be the salt of the earth and well represented by this movie. It is a film which comes along only once in a while but which is worth every compliment which can be paid to it. I have no hesitation recommending this to everyone although I feel that in my adopted country they will need subtitles.

April 27, 2006

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