Carta Para Brezhnev

Atmospheric, un-slick, and utterly unique, Letter to Brezhnev captures a slice of the 1980s which seems all the more extraordinary in 1999. Graced by realistic acting, deft camera work, and a superb soundtrack, one is successfully transformed to a period and a place, in this case wonderfully dreary Liverpool in the early 80s - New Wave music and the Cold War are in full swing. Such a movie is hip today but rarely achieved. The story may seem a little far-fetched - Liverpool girl (Pigg) gets Russian guy (Firth) with a little help from no less than the Soviet Premier - but some of us who grew up in the 80s like to think that it could. The 80s were like that. Now, we just have awful, cynical, formulaic pap - Reality Bites and Boys on the Side...whine, whine, whine. Why can't more movies like Letter to Brezhnev be made?

Margi Clarke is on smashing form here as the gobby Liverpudlian lass ("Teresa") who, together with her pal "Elaine" (a strong performance from Alexandra Pigg), is out on the town hoping to fleece some well heeled punters. They are doing ok on that front - even if they have to do quite a bit of running - when they encounter "Peter" (Peter Firth) and his mate "Andrei" (Alfred Molina) who have a night of shore leave from their Soviet ship. "Teresa" and "Peter" immediately click and after their few hours together, sans sex, they declare their undying love and determination to meet again. How might this happen, though? They are thousands of miles apart and she hasn't tuppence to rub together. Her plan: write to President Brezhnev. His reply: an invitation to visit and a plane ticket. Can she go, will she go, is it all just a daft pipe dream? Whether they do or not is actually quite incidental to the story. It's a whirlwind romance presented to us in a whirlwind fashion that just oozes character. Firth isn't the most versatile of actors, he is a bit one-gear I think, but here that serves as the perfect foil for the brassy, sassy Clarke who provides for an entertaining persona that us Celts can appreciate easily. It's dated, sure, but somehow this love story with a bottle of vodka thrown in still works fine.

A multifaceted film about two English working class girls (Teresa and Elaine) and two Russian sailors (Peter and Sergei).

In the first half two couples spent a night together. Teresa and Sergei go for the plain vanilla one night stand. Elaine and Peter keep it Platonic, but in so doing get to know each other much better. After all it is Elaine who has the hardest time when the sailors have to get back on board again.

The second half revolves around the relationship of the two friends Elaine and Teresa. This relationship has much in common with the relationship between Elin and Agnes in "Show me love" (1998, Lukas Moodysson). Teresa (Elin) does have the bigger mouth, but Elaine (Agnes) is the one with more guts.

Between the lines the second half is also a little bit of a political satire. There are more films in which romances are disturbed by "big politics" ("The unbearable lightness of being", 1988, Philip Kaufman), but a romance resulting in a girl contemplating an emigration to the Soviet Union is quite new.

In this respect the film is very characteristic of the 80s. The Cold war was passed his prime, in fact (with hinsight) the Soviet Union was nearly dead. On the other hand in England it was the time of the Thatcher years with budget cuts that did hit the Northern part of England (the movie plays in Liverpool) disproportionately hard.

Just like in "Show me love" there is one scene in "Letter to Brezhnev" that is very characteristic of the relation between the two friends. In "Show me love" the relation between Elin and Agnes is defined in the "toilet scene". In "Letter to Brezhnev" the bar scene is equally important. On a given moment Elaine is captivated by doubt if she should go to Russia. She goes outside to make up her mind. When she comes back she orders two wodka's for Teresa and herself. She has made a decision!

Living and working in Liverpool in the mid 1980s I first watched this cheeky rom-com just after its release. Yes, it was and still is hilarious and yes, it does portray life in the city at that time, hard, depressing and at times, strangely uplifting.

I've just watched it again and although somewhat dated - hairstyles, clothes (not Margi Clarke's magnificent, timeless red dress) and of course much of the city which is correctly shown as run-down, drab and frankly, awful during its '80s nadir; its the spirit of the Scousers that always gets them through, then and now.

That legendary resilience is personified by Elaine (Alexandra Pigg) a pretty, girl-next door dreamer who somehow has to escape her life and surroundings. Ably assisted by her friend Teresa (Margi Clarke) they embark on a night out in town where amongst other wild activities they meet two Russian sailors in a club. Elaine is completely smitten with Peter (Peter Firth) and Teresa goes along for the ride with Sergei (Alfred Molina) in a manner of speaking...

The humour is harsh, sarcastic and 100% Scouse. The scenes between Clarke and Molina are the stuff of legend - realistic just doesn't do them both justice. Meanwhile, Elaine and Peter are falling in love. After a night of passion and a certain amount of philosophy there is another memorable scene when Elaine and Peter depart at the dockside as the boys have to leave for the Soviet Union.

Desperately in love, tetchy and lonely she decides on what seems a ridiculous scheme to re-unite with Peter. I found myself rooting for her, as I did almost 40 years ago. It's the girl's sheer guts that I admire the most about the film. She has little going for her as she runs up against the objections of her family, friends and the establishment. But she still has Teresa to help her an achieve her dream. Wonderful.

Ah, but if only it were realistic. Because if anyone knows anything about the way the Soviet Union dealt with sailors in those days, the regime would never have let these two guys go off by themselves on shore, not even for a short while. I hope no one has to explain to you why. And even if this sweet young thing did get her chance to get a letter through to Brezhnev, he would surely be wondering how this sailor was able to free himself long enough to get into this situation in the first place, and I can tell you he wouldn't like it — even if the propaganda value might otherwise be useful.

But of course, romantic notions of life in the Soviet Union were not exactly rare at the time — especially, perhaps, in a very depressed place like Liverpool in the '80's. I wished Elaine luck, but it's kind of like watching one of those old Science Fiction movies and hoping the aliens and the earthlings can learn how to get along, because you know that in real life you don't really have to or get to.