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The Cranes Are Flying (Летят журавли)

€5.00EUR

The first indisputable masterpiece of post-Stalin cinema. A luscious portrait of love and loss during World War II.

Product description

THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Летят журавли) - A masterpiece of Soviet era cinema

The Cranes Are Flying is a Soviet film about World War II. It depicts the cruelty of war and the damage suffered to the Soviet psyche as a result of World War II (known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War). It was directed at Mosfilm by the Georgian-born Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov in 1957 and stars Aleksey Batalov and Tatiana Samoilova. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the second of two Soviet films to win the award.

The film depicts a Soviet family of the professional class. The head of the family, Fyodor Ivanovich, is a doctor and lives with his son, Boris, and daughter, Irina. His mother and nephew Mark also live with the family. The film centers on Boris's girlfriend, Veronika, and her experiences in wartime. She is nicknamed "Belka" ("squirrel").

The call to war sounds, and the country responds with great patriotic fervor. Boris volunteers to defend his homeland from the attackers, much to Veronika's sadness. He leaves for the war, and is killed under the birches (pod beryozonykoy) in a swamp, saving a fellow soldier. However, he is listed as missing in action and neither Veronika nor his family know that he has been killed.

The German blitzkrieg then begins, and the family is terrorized by nights of bombing; they take refuge in the subway system underneath the city. During one attack, Veronika leaves her parents in their apartment and when she returns the building had been bombed. The entire apartment is gone and there is no sign of her parents, so Fyodor Ivanovich invites Veronika to live with his family. Mark, who has been pursuing Veronika for much of the film, is put in charge of keeping her company to lift her spirits. He is obviously in love with her, but she continually rejects him because she is waiting for Boris to return. However, during one bombing raid Veronika refuses to go down to the shelter and is left alone with Mark. This scene is unclear, but it appears that Mark rapes Veronika. She is then shamed into marrying him, and the rest of the family believes that she has betrayed Boris.

The family is relocated with many other Russians further East to escape the German offensive. They live in a temporary community where Fyodor Ivanovich, Irina, and Veronika work in a military hospital. Mark spends his time partying and playing music; he and Veronika are both clearly unhappy in their marriage. When one of the soldiers in the hospital becomes hysterical when he receives a letter saying that his girlfriend left him, Fyodor Ivanovich gives a speech condemning her. Veronika overhears the whole thing and becomes very upset, since the situation seems to parallel her life.

Shortly after that, Fyodor Ivanovich finds out that Mark was deferred from conscription not because he was considered too talented to be exempt as he had claimed, but because he bribed an official in Fyodor Ivanovich's name. Fyodor Ivanovich suddenly realizes that Mark has not only betrayed Russia, but he has betrayed the whole family and has taken advantage of Veronika. Fyodor Ivanovich confronts Mark and kicks him out of the house, while Veronika is allowed to stay and is forgiven by the family for "betraying" Boris.

The man that Boris died trying to save comes in search of Boris's family to tell them the news. When Veronika finds out, she refuses to believe it, saying Boris's friend Stepan, who volunteered with Boris, will know what happened to him. When the soldiers come back at a victory parade Veronika meets Stepan and she finds out that Boris is indeed dead. The film ends on a hopeful note when the war is over: Boris's friend Stepan makes a speech asserting that they will never forget those who died in the war, but peace must be maintained.

Awards won:

• Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival
• Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival
• Jussi Awards - Diploma of Merit

Nominated for:

• BAFTA Film Award for Best Film from any Source
• BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actress

Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cranes_Are_Flying

Review by Bosley Crowther, published in New York Times on March 22, 1960

SOME things that many people may be surprised to find in a Soviet film are the warp and weft of "The Cranes Are Flying," which came to the Fine Arts yesterday. These are a downright obsessive and overpowering revulsion to war and, in contrast, a beautifully tender, almost lyric, feeling for romantic love.

These two amazing expressions, so uncommon in Soviet films, which are more often given to extolling patriotic fervor and the lovable qualities of hydroelectric plants, are the particular thematic distinctions of this extra ordinary prize-winning film, offered here under the cultural exchange agreement promoted by the Soviet Union and our Department of State.

Unusual, too, is the employment of a highly intimate, impressionistic style of cinematic narration to tell the story of a sensitive Moscow girl who weakens and is unfaithful to her sweetheart when he is at the front in World War II. Mikhail Kalatozov, the director, has harked back to a cinematic style that was popular in the days when Pudovkin and Dovzhenko were making heroic revolutionary films. It is a style used in silent pictures, full of angular shots and close-up views of running feet and anguished faces. But M. Kalatozov has brought it up to date to blend with sound and the overlapping idioms of modern screen reportage. It might be called neo-romanticism, applied to a tragic tale.

The story is that of two lovers who are parted by the war—he a stalwart and patriotic fellow who willingly volunteers and marches off, while she, a wholesome maiden, remains behind and tends her hospital job. But under the strain of wartime torments, the loss of her family and her home in an air raid and the loneliness of waiting and not hearing from her beau, she submits to the latter's pianist cousin, who has got out of going to war. And, in the turmoil of the moment, she lovelessly marries him.

The illogic of this marriage is the most glaring fault of the plot, since it represents a conspicuous old-fashioned romantic cliché. But the twist does provide the solid basis for the heroine's subsequent despair and the high moral of the fable, which is that one should stay faithful to one's love.

Other familiar little details may be noted in the film, possibly signifying deliberate propaganda aims. For instance, an aged grandmother bestows upon the departing soldier the sign of the cross. The piano used by the musician is a Steinway. And family affections are strongly pronounced. But most genuine and touching is the emphasis on the steadfast love and devotion of the heroine for her sweetheart—and his for her, as caught in quick scenes at the front.

Thanks to Mr. Kalatozov's direction and the excellent performance Tatyana Samoilova gives as the girl, one absorbs a tremendous feeling of sympathy from this film—a feeling that has no awareness of geographical or political bounds. She is simply a fine, fecund-looking young woman torn from her lover by war. And he, played by Alexei Batalov, is a pleasant and credible young man moved by romantic impulses and shattered by fates outside himself.

Vasily Merkuryev as the soldier's father, Alexander Shvorin as the pianist and Alla Bogdanova as the grandmother make solid characters, too.

Strong music and good English subtitles to translate the Russian dialogue complete a moving drama that carries a message of love.

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Additional information

Starring	Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev, Aleksandr Shvorin, Svetlana Kharitonova, Konstantin Nikitin, Valentin Zubkov, Antonina Bogdanova, Boris Kokovkin, Yekaterina Kupriyanova, Valentina Ananyina, O. Dzisko, Klarina Frolova, Leonid Knyazev, Yu. Kulikov, Pyotr Merkuryev, Daniil Netrebin, Aleksandr Popov, I. Preis, T. Shamshurin, Nikolai Smorchkov, Galina Stepanova, Adrián Viador, Valentina Vladimirova
Format	Black & White, PAL
Main soundtrack	• Russian Mono with English subtitles • Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 with English subtitles • English Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles	As above
Special features	• Filmographies • Photo Album • Chronicle • Interview with Alexei Batalov • Interview with Tatiana Samoilova
Region
Aspect ratio	4:3
Number of discs	1
Classification	BBFC
Studio	Nouveaux Pictures
DVD release date	29 Jan 2007 in the UK
Run time	97 minutes
EAN	5035017010419