The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: The Cranes Are Flying (1957) Run Time: 1H 36M

Greetings gentle readers, welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today we have a classic of Russian cinema: The Cranes are Flying.

Reviews:

Letterboxd says:

I hate this movie. It’s going directly into my top 100.

I hate that it makes my heart hurt so much and how the camera work makes me dizzy and nauseous at the horrors of war.

I hate that the sharpness of some of the images stings my eyes, especially those of her eyes and in hearing the word Nyet, over and over to no avail.

I hate the condemnation and perpetual self hatred and to what depths and lengths they’ll carry the burden of them.

I hate that Anna never gets a chance to answer the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Because, I really needed to know. Instead, I’m left fumbling right along with the movie, wondering.

I hate how unsettled I feel and how adrift…

I love that I hate it, for it’s cinema at its finest and most confronting.

Filmsfatale says:

Kalatozov has a strong team behind him, particularly Sergey Urusevsky (who is unquestionably one of the greatest cinematographers of all time) who is exemplary with his wide shots and even better with his extreme close ups. There are camera tricks and ideas here that just puzzle me, not just because I cannot fathom how they were pulled off sixty five years ago but also because I don’t get how there weren’t numerous filmmakers trying to bite this film’s style. Maybe its gradual releases made it under seen (it was only shown at Cannes a year after it was made and then released on a wide level in 1960), or there’s the fact that maybe the finest cinematographers of the time also couldn’t figure out what Urusevsky was doing (please see I Am Cuba for even stronger filmic mastery). These images are perfect for displaying war-torn Moscow (this is a World War II picture) and the broken souls that have faced the worst of humanity.

Criterion.com says:

In Samoilova (daughter of Evgeny Samoilov, who starred in Alexander Dovzhenko’s 1939 Shchors), Kalatozov found an extraordinary screen personality. She is striking not just for her beauty but for her unselfconscious, almost awkward expressiveness, so poignant in the close shots of her in the first minutes of the film—note the calmness of the tiny gesture with which she beckons Boris toward her. Veronica is in motion throughout much of the movie, and Samoilova’s face makes her flight luminous. If the film keeps the audience interested in Veronica, this is not just because Samoilova is so vivid and so good but also because Batalov’s Boris responds to her with an alert appreciation that never lapses into condescension. We understand his need for closeness to her. The time the two share on-screen is limited, but their moments together are so intensely acted and observed that they seem to go on much longer. Kalatozov heightens this effect by placing the lovers’ early-morning idyll in the empty streets of Moscow as a self-contained prologue before the main titles, as if the couple’s relationship existed in a state of timelessness. The director films Boris and Veronica from alternating high and low camera angles, so that the city and the sky, communicating directly, seem to promise unlimited freedom.

My take:

This is one gorgeous film. The cinematography is masterful. The use of light and shadow is a tale unto itself. The acting is simple but in a pure way, an innocent way. Five stars.

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov

Writer: Viktor Rozov

Notable Actors: Aleksey Batalov, Tatiana Samoilova

Plot (Spoilers!):

Veronika (Samoilova) and Boris (Batalov) are two young lovers who have snuck out from their respective homes to spend time together. The sun is rising and a flock of cranes flies overheard, marking the beauty of their time together. But their happiness is about to end.

It’s the advent of World War 2 and Boris has volunteered for the Army. In the chaos, he ships off for the front before he has a chance to say goodbye to Veronika. Their time together is over…but not their love.

Veronika’s parents are soon killed in a German air raid and she goes to live with Boris’s family. While Boris is facing down the Hun, his cousin is making the moves on Veronika. Consumed by lust, he rapes her.

Spiritually broken, Veronika marries the cousin. She despises him. In turn, she is despised by Boris’s family for having betrayed Boris for the cousin. Meanwhile, Boris is killed in action after saving a comrade’s life.

The German advance is advancing and the family moves to the wastelands of Siberia for safety. Mark and Veronika are miserable but she has found meaningful work as a nurse with Boris’s father. On one occasion, a wounded soldier becomes hysterical when he learns that his girlfriend has dumped him and the father lectures the ward about the low nature of women who leave their men during war. Sickened by the realization that she is such a woman, Veronika attempts suicide but stops at the last second to save a young boy from certain death. She takes the boy home and he becomes a member of the family.

Veronika wants to give him a toy, a plush squirrel that Boris had given her, but she learns that Mark has taken the toy to give to his mistress at a party. Veronika crashes the party to get the toy and learns that there is a love note from Boris in it. Reading it, she realizes she is finished with the cousin.

At home, Boris’s father learns that his nephew has bribed his way out of military service. That combined with his cheating leads to him being booted out of the house. The family, realizing that the cousin had hurt Veronika, forgive her for abandoning Boris.

The war is now over and the soldiers are returning to their glory. Veronika searches desperately for Boris at the train station but when she runs into a friend of his she learns that he is in fact dead. She is heartbroken but the friend gives an impassioned speech to the crowd about always remembering their lost ones and she finds the bravery to face the future without Boris. In the final scenes we see a flock of cranes flying over the city: even in the absence of Boris her love endures.