Cranes Flying
The war movie is a 1957 film by… shame on me for having already forgotten his name. It’s called Cranes Flying (? – Letiat Zhuravli in Russian), and is about the second world war. It won all kinds of awards all over the world when it came out, including Cannes, Vienna I think, Canada, USA — was relatively well-known in the West.
Two youngsters utterly in love, shot at stunning, interesting angles very unusual (to my untrained eye) for that era of filmmaking in the USSR. Beautiful geometry of composition, lingering camera movements, just breathtaking. Veronica’s an only child; Boris (by the way, this name is pronounced buhr-EES) has a brother and sister, or cousin, and they all live with their uncle, aunt and grandmother. The war breaks out – this is on a Sunday morning. By the early afternoon Boris has already decided to volunteer in the Army. Shorter version: he goes away; V’s parents get killed in an air raid; B’s family takes V in; his slimy brother who weaseled out of being drafted seduces her during another air raid, the dog; she is ashamed and feels guilty but sees no choice but to marry him.
Veronica becomes a nurse in a war hospital where the uncle works as a head doctor. Boris gets killed in the war, but the family doesn’t know this until the end of the war. Veronica and the brother have no children, but the sister/cousin hates V’s guts for betraying Boris. The uncle knows that his nephew’s a slimy dog, though, and it all comes out in the end, that he seduced her (which everyone knew anyway) and the dishonest manner in which he got out of being drafted.
Still guilt-ridden, Veronica saves the life of a lost three-year-old boy named Bor’ka [diminuitive of Boris] one day, when she gets him out of the way of an oncoming car. She takes the kid in and adopts him. She and the rest of the family find out from Boris’ returning comrade that he’s been killed, but V. doesn’t believe it until the very end, when Boris does not come back. She still feels guilty and awful, but we are given to understand that the jerk brother is kicked out of the family, whereas she and the kid stay. She gives out flowers to returning soldiers and probably continues her life with the kid and her adopted family.
Well-done film. Chronologically, it’s the best Russian film since The Man With The Movie Camera. Anyone know its English title?..
August 8th, 2004 at 11:12 pm
It’s a great film, I do prefer Russian movies from 1960-1990. But there plenty of great movies after “Man With The Movie Camera”.
Have you seen Solaris, Russian Ark, The Return or Night Watch?
August 9th, 2004 at 6:45 am
Alexey – Yes, I’ve seen plenty of Russian films, being Russian myself. :) I did say it was *chronologically* the best since, etc. All the movies you mention came out later than 1957.
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