Bons baisers de Liverpool

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!

Theresa and Elaine are out on the town, they bump into two Soviet sailors Sergei and Peter. After spending the night together, Teresa spends a wild night with Sergei, whereas Elaine and Peter form a much deeper attachment. Unfortunately for Peter and Elaine, their ship is only docked in Liverpool for one night.

I have to start by saying I utterly love this film, it is totally enchanting, it's moving, funny, wonderfully poignant, and gives a window to 1985, culturally and politically.

The music is fabulous, very eighties, but wonderfully in keeping with the tone and emotion of the film. The acting is glorious, Margi Clarke and Alexandra Pigg are sensational.

Liverpool makes a fabulous backdrop, it looks amazing, particularly on the ferry crossing. It does help that I love the place. This film deserves to be a lot bigger and hold cult status.

Superb 10/10

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.

Frank Clarke is my favourite writer of British Films (Letter To Brezhnev, Blonde Fist, and I have just found out The Fruit Machine.) The film is set in Modern day working class Liverpool, where two friends Teresa (the one and only Margi Clarke) and Elaine (Alexandra Pigg) hit the town one night and meet two Russian Sailors. Elaine falls head over heels in love and when the sailors set sail Elaine writes a letter to president Brezhnev of Russia regarding her love and the need to see him again as she believes she is being prevented by the British authorities. It is not however a soppy love story, fast paced and again quite true to working class life in Britain in the 1980's. A Film Four production again, who have made the best low budget British Films of the last twenty years.

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?