Dead Mountain: The Dyatlov Pass Incident

It's so closed to the investigation materials. Actors are great here. The best movie about Dyatlov Pass Incident

The most famous TV series in the world, based on a rather sorrowful page from the history of the USSR is without a doubt "Chernobyl". But now a new series has emerged - «Dead mountain. The Dyatlov Pass Incident» - that is also based on real and rather terrible events dated back to the USSR , and I'm wondering if it will become an international sensation?

The series is built around a widely known tragedy that happened in the Ural mountains in 1959. A group of tourists set off on a ski hike but at the appointed time hadn't reached its destination point. Several days later criminalists were sent out to look for the tourists and only by May all 9 bodies were found. The skiers died under mysterious circumstances. Tremendous amount of versions were built around this tragedy, but the incident still remains unsolved - even 60 years after the event. Can the series shed light on that ill-fated night?

The main protagonist is the KGB major Oleg Kostin. He is sent from Moscow to either establish the truth or to cover it up. Kostin is a former veteran of WWII, and in his military past there is a certain ominous encounter that the authors do not put on the table immediately.

The series was shot in the style of "Soviet Noir": an atmospheric retro vibe shot on film. Despite the rapidly changing events, the mood is quite unhurried. It doesn't give you a feeling of senseless action sequence, «Dead Mountain» gives a viewer an opportunity to think and get absorbed by the event. Camera work is truly outstanding - gloriously shot mountain scenery, remarkable camera angles, unusual jumps and moves.

«Dead mountain» is for those who love TV series based on real events, who like to time travel into the past in search for answers. It is both stylish and captivating.

No one knows for sure what actually happened to the trekkers but the most plausible and likely theories are the ones that are dramatised here and presented as the conclusion in the final episode.

The series cleverly uses two styles to tell its story. The hike is shot in black and white and the subsequent investigation is filmed in colour. Flashbacks and backgrounds of the characters are also shot in colour.

The back stories of the older characters mainly concern the war and are completely fictionalised to impart a sense of creepy horror to the series. The indigenous people, the Mansi, are also portrayed as shamanistic communers with nature whose superstitions mesh with the account but are not the cause of the tragedy.

There are hints and suggestions of darker political and military forces at work - this is now in the public domain - which unfortunately led to a rash of conspiracy theories. However, the conclusion reached by the initial and the subsequent investigations seems to be sound and that's the line taken by this programme.

There is enough information made public for the programme makers to have been able to reconstruct most of the hike and the investigation. The conversations are fictional, of course, and the reconstruction of the final hours has, of necessity, to be speculative.

It's a worthy series to watch. The director managed to convey the flavour of the Communist times with élan and accuracy. I didn't quite binge watch, but I had seen all eight episodes within three days. I'm glad I saw this.

First of all it's worth mentioning that it's a story based on real events, however the ending of the story is speculative, so the authors try to fit all possible versions of what happened to the group into a working narrative. The filmmakers did a twist with this show, the story is told in two parts happening simultaneously, so you have half of the episodes as a criminal investigation show and the other half as an adventure/thriller. The thriller part is presented in black and white simulating the style of the old soviet Cinema, while the investigation/crime part is coloured. The acting is decent, it reflects the era very well and there are a lot of unexpected plot twits on the way, overall not a bad show at all ...

I suggest you watch it. Very different from what we have been fed for decades by the already declined Hollywood and most of European cinema. Nice, smooth plot, but the film direction is the masterpiece.