‘Postmarks’: Cairo Review

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

Natalya Nazarova’s plaintive heartbreaker achieves a fairytale quality as the Cinderella-like central character unexpectedly finds her Prince Charming. Steeped in melancholy and as lugubrious as any Aki Kaurismaki charmer, Postmarks could find it own modest happy-ever-after on the festival trail, especially after winning several prizes at Cairo including best director and acting prizes for Alina Khojevanova and Maxim Stoyanov.

Told with a dry wit and filled with telling ironies

Shot on the Kola Peninsula in northeast Russia, Postmarks (previously known as Firefly and Philately) appears to be set at the edge of the world. Cinematographer Natalya Makarova captures an atmospheric picture of a rain-sodden town, permanently shrouded in mist rolling in from the bay. Tankers gliding through the waters cast twinkling lights into the gloom. 

Yana (Khojevanova) works in a shack that serves as a combination of post-office and general store. She never travels far but the world comes to her via the postage stamps that she has collected over the past decade. She also haunts the harbour in the manner of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, straining to see any speck on the horizon that might signal the return of a father who went to sea and has never returned.

Yana has a form of cerebral palsy that impacts her speech and mobility. The able-bodied Khojevanova, who previously worked with Nazarova on The Pencil (2019) and Raicentr (2021), invests Yana with a spirited eccentricity.  Lonely but defiant, she refuses the label of victim that others might seek to pin on her. Her need for heart surgery is dismissed with the reasoning, “I’ll live as long as I last. No one will cry for me.” Yet Prince Charming arrives in the form of boisterous, big-hearted boatswain Petya (Maxim Stoyanov) who resists glamorous post-office colleague Vera (Irina Nosova) to focus his attentions on Yana.

There is a sweet affection in the romance that blossoms between Yana and Petya as they spend karaoke nights in the pub or peruse Yana’s extensive stamp collection, thematically arranged in bulging albums. The couple are framed in the glow of strawberry pink lighting in the pub and in Yana’s home. 

Nazarova also shows a good deal of sympathy for small town life where everyone knows everyone’s business, the dating pool is limited and the humiliation of rejection or jealousy carries an extra sting. There is also a sigh of nostalgia running through the film as various characters lament the passing of better days. The chair of the local philately club regrets that the hobby is now seen as unfashionable and unloved. Another post-office colleague, Lubya (Olesya Ivantsova), bemoans the dying art of letter writing.

The daily routine of work in the post-office underlines the fairytale aspects of the romance with Yana, often at the mercy of Vera who has all the instincts of a wicked witch. Pushed over the edge by a rejection from Petya that seems inexplicable to her, Vera becomes Yana’s sworn enemy. Nosova plays her villainy to a hilt – if this were a pantomime, audiences would start to boo her every appearance.

There is something about Petya that seems too good to be true, but Nazarova keeps the fairytale grounded in the reality of Yana’s deteriorating health and Petya being away at sea for six months at a time. Told with a dry wit and filled with telling ironies, Postmarks succeeds as a tale for romantics and everyone with faith in the power of love.