■CINEMA
Letter to Brezhnev
Review by Lois Wadsworth
Chris Bernard's delightful first film in
troduces newcomers Alexandra Pigg
and Margi Clarke in a romantic com
edy with a new wave lift.
As their ship approaches Liver
pool harbor, Peter (Peter Firth)
and Sergei (Alfred Molina), Rus
sian sailors due for 24 hour shore
leave, grin at each other and laugh
gleefully. "Beatles," the large
bearded man chortles. Down in
the city, a couple of street-wise
girlfriends with no money — Elaine
(Alexander Pigg) and Teresa
(Margi Clarke)—leave Liverpool's
depressing working class taverns
and head for a new wave club up
town. This adventure is unwilling
ly financed by a sleazy business
man who loses his wallet while
dancing with Teresa; a chase en
sues, but happily, the pair escape.
Elaine and Teresa are as irrever
ently refreshing as smart-mouthed
John Lennon at his Liverpudlian
best — they are just what these
sweet Russian sailors on a good
will mission need. Sergei and Te
resa's common language is sexual;
in the next room, Elaine and Peter
stay up talking all night and fall in
love. Their brief time together is
suffused with tender, endearing
moments. When he must go back
to his ship, they kiss goodbye
through a cyclone fence, symbol
of the barrier between their coun
tries which now separates them.
Elaine is discouraged from going
to Russia by the British govern
ment, her family, and every opin
ionated arsehole in Liverpool; at
Teresa's instigation, she writes a
letter to Brezhnev.
On one level,
Letter to
Brezhnev is a film about a young
woman falling in love and over
coming obstacles to be with her
lover, and on another level it is
new wave social commentary—a
blend of gritty city savvy and
non-political one-world philos
ophy. The Liverpool that director
Chris Bernard, writer Frank
Clarke (Margi’s brother), and
cameraman Bruce McGowan
reveal is ambiguous—both garish
ly lovely and profoundly de
pressed economically. Elaine's on
the dole and Teresa stuffs giblets
back into chickens and steals a
wing here and a thigh there at a
fryer processing plant where she
works. The inevitability of their
situation informs the film and
gives it a bittersweet quality. In a
revealing exchange, Elaine tells
Peter she doesn't have a job. Peter
says in Russia you don't eat if you
don't work; he asks Elaine if that
means she doesn't eat. Elaine
laughs and says it isn't that bad
“Elaine and Teresa are as irreverently refreshing as smart-mouthed John Lennon at his Liver
pudlian best..." in Chris Bernard's "Letter to Brezhnev.
yet, but later in the film we see her
sister Josie (Angela Clarke) out
side the chicken plant receiving a
bag of stolen pieces from Teresa,
which tells us how bad it really is.
Both women want to get out of
their dead end lifestyles; Elaine's
love for Peter represents that pos
sibility, and she jumps at it. Te
resa, on the surface the harder and
more assertive of the two, is prob
ably stuck in Liverpool. By the
end of Letter to Brezhnev, we care
a lot about what becomes of these
madcap, swearing, raunchy work
ing class young women and their
simple dreams for a better life.
Letter to Breshnev has received
great acclaim in international film
circles, at least partly because it
appears to inject the nearly dead
and boringly predictable British
film establishment with some
spicy originality and vitality. Let
ter's barrage of blue language is
certainly a first for an industry
Americans identify with the polite
intelligence of Alastair Cooke and
Masterpiece Theatre. The film
wasn't shot on location — for Chris
Bernard and many of the people
who made the picture (including
Alexandra and Margi), Liverpool
is home turf. The production ad
dresses issues of love and peace
with verve and style —John Len
non's non-conformist working
class hero lives again in Pigg's and
Clarke's spirited performances!
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