‘Postmarks’: Cairo Review

Dir/scr: Natalya Nazarova. Russia. 2024. 113mins

Natalya Nazarova’s plaintive heartbreaker achieves a fairytale high quality because the Cinderella-like central character unexpectedly finds her Prince Charming. Steeped in melancholy and as lugubrious as any Aki Kaurismaki charmer, Postmarks may discover it personal modest happy-ever-after on the competition path, particularly after successful a number of prizes at Cairo together with greatest director and appearing prizes for Alina Khojevanova and Maxim Stoyanov.

Informed with a dry wit and stuffed with telling ironies

Shot on the Kola Peninsula in northeast Russia, Postmarks (beforehand referred to as Firefly and Philately) seems to be set on the fringe of the world. Cinematographer Natalya Makarova captures an atmospheric image of a rain-sodden city, completely shrouded in mist rolling in from the bay. Tankers gliding via the waters solid twinkling lights into the gloom. 

Yana (Khojevanova) works in a shack that serves as a mixture of post-office and basic retailer. She by no means travels far however the world involves her through the postage stamps that she has collected over the previous decade. She additionally haunts the harbour within the method of The French Lieutenant’s Girl, straining to see any speck on the horizon that may sign the return of a father who went to sea and has by no means returned.

Yana has a type of cerebral palsy that impacts her speech and mobility. The able-bodied Khojevanova, who beforehand labored with Nazarova on The Pencil (2019) and Raicentr (2021), invests Yana with a spirited eccentricity.  Lonely however defiant, she refuses the label of sufferer that others may search to pin on her. Her want for coronary heart surgical procedure is dismissed with the reasoning, “I’ll dwell so long as I final. Nobody will cry for me.” But Prince Charming arrives within the type of boisterous, big-hearted boatswain Petya (Maxim Stoyanov) who resists glamorous post-office colleague Vera (Irina Nosova) to focus his attentions on Yana.

There’s a candy affection within the romance that blossoms between Yana and Petya as they spend karaoke nights within the pub or peruse Yana’s intensive stamp assortment, thematically organized in bulging albums. The couple are framed within the glow of strawberry pink lighting within the pub and in Yana’s dwelling. 

Nazarova additionally reveals a great deal of sympathy for small city life the place everybody is aware of everybody’s enterprise, the courting pool is restricted and the humiliation of rejection or jealousy carries an additional sting. There may be additionally a sigh of nostalgia operating via the movie as varied characters lament the passing of higher days. The chair of the native philately membership regrets that the passion is now seen as retro and unloved. One other post-office colleague, Lubya (Olesya Ivantsova), bemoans the dying artwork of letter writing.

The each day routine of labor within the post-office underlines the fairytale elements of the romance with Yana, usually on the mercy of Vera who has all of the instincts of a depraved witch. Pushed over the sting by a rejection from Petya that appears inexplicable to her, Vera turns into Yana’s sworn enemy. Nosova performs her villainy to a hilt – if this had been a pantomime, audiences would begin to boo her each look.

There’s something about Petya that appears too good to be true, however Nazarova retains the fairytale grounded within the actuality of Yana’s deteriorating well being and Petya being away at sea for six months at a time. Informed with a dry wit and stuffed with telling ironies, Postmarks succeeds as a story for romantics and everybody with religion within the energy of affection.