Letter to America / Lyst do Ameryky

The protagonist has nowhere to live and no money—he rents out his own “living space” in the old center of Odesa to a woman who stubbornly refuses to pay. Besides the housing issue, he is also irritated by the need to record a video message to a once close friend who emigrated to America. The very idea of a common language between former friends on opposite sides of the ocean seems absurd. It is the year 1999.

This concise sketch was written by Kira Muratova’s frequent collaborator, Serhii Chetvertkov, who also stars in the main role. The film ended up entering the debut competition at the Molodist festival in 2000, —since the director “debuted” in the short film format!—marking the definitive end, or rather the death, of the Ukrainian cinematographic 1990s. The film, shot on location in Muratova’s own apartment and a nearby park (Shevchenko Park), without any budget to speak of, seems to observe the material world just seconds before its final annihilation. However, Muratova wouldn’t be Muratova if the film, despite its content, didn’t also include the most playful wittyness of her career.

Muratova bitterly sums up a decade that began with the opening of new prospects and the search for a new artistic language—but ended, if we are to believe the authors of Letter to America, in the impossibility of saying a single word. The Iron Curtain fell, but in its place arose an even wider, because invisible, chasm. Gradually, the psyche of the post-Soviet person, instead of attempting to build new complex relationships with the world, explodes with powerful resentment, which Muratova captures on camera more precisely than anyone else. The letter is not received; return to sender.