The Cranes are Flying (1957)
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov

Film Review

The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 had many positive consequences for the Soviet Union, not least of which was a sudden and dramatic flourishing of creativity in the arts, notably literature and cinema.   The so-called Khrushchev Thaw helped to bring about a massive relaxation of repression and censorship which gave artists far greater freedom to express what they felt without fear of imprisonment or censure.  World War II (known under Stalin as the Great Patriotic War) was one subject that many Soviet writers and filmmakers latched onto, finally able to take stock of and lament the intolerable human cost of the conflict.  It is worth remembering that the Soviet Union was the country that sustained the highest number of casualties in WWII, the death count being around 25 million, far in excess of any other country.  Now that the mass murderer Stalin was out of the way, the Soviet people could at last mourn the greatest tragedy in their history.

The Cranes are Flying (Letyat zhuravli) was the most high profile film about the war to be made in this unique period of reflection and renewal.  A box office hit in the Soviet Union, it was also critically acclaimed and popular in the West, and was the only Soviet film to be awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, one of the Soviet Union's leading auteur filmmakers who would gain further distinction with his subsequent masterpiece I Am Cuba (1964).  Kalatozov's approach marked a radical break with the Soviet realism that was prevalent in the Stalin era and a return to the more stylised lyricism of early silent cinema, as perfected by Meyerhold, Eisenstein and Pudovkin.  The Cranes are Flying owes much of its romanticism and cinematic bravado to the past but it was a startlingly modern film for its time and anticipates the New Wave advances that were shortly to break out in other countries around the world, in particular France and Britain.

Whereas previous Soviet films had glorified in the sacrifice of WWII, The Cranes are Flying solemnly reflects on the human suffering and loss that resulted from the war.  The backdrop may be epic but the story the film has to tell is a simple one, about a young couple who are separated by the war and cruelly denied the happiness that seemed to be within their grasp.  It's not an anti-war film as such, it accepts the war as a tragic necessity, but it doesn't downplay the misery it causes.   In a career-defining role, Tatyana Samojlova epitomises the plight of so many ordinary Soviet people whose lives were shattered by WWII.  Samojlova received the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her heartrending and blisteringly authentic portrayal of the heroine Veronika, the character that brought a human face to Soviet cinema and had a lasting impact on the portrayal of women in Soviet films.  Veronika's compulsive longing to believe that her lover will one day return to her, her self-loathing when she is forced into marrying an inferior man and the desolation that momentarily devours her when she realises the truth - such is the power of Samojlova's quietly understated performance that no one who watches the film can fail to be moved by it.

Assisted by two immensely talented individuals, cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky and editor Mariya Timofeyeva, Mikhail Kalatozov crafts a film that is intensely stirring and visually compelling.  The mundanity of Soviet life before and during the war are evoked by a realist approach, from which Kalatozov periodically veers with some dazzling excursions into expressionism which provide the most tangible glimpse of what the protagonists feel in their heightened states of emotion.  The best example of this is the scene near the middle of the film where, in the midst of a German air raid, Veronika resists the amorous advances of her admirer Mark.  The crescendo of sound builds to a terrifying climax as Mark's lustful intent becomes apparent, forcing Veronika into the role of a heroine in what now resembles a German horror film of the 1920s.  A similar dramatic intensity is achieved in a later sequence in which Veronika succumbs to an overriding impulse to kill herself when she realises how she has betrayed her true love by marrying Mark.  The frenzied editing, worthy of Eisenstein, creates another swoop of emotional delirium that is the exact inverse of the vertiginous staircase chase at the start of the film, where the happy lovers Veronika and Boris allow themselves to be whisked away on a whirlwind of euphoria.  Rarely has the pleasure of love and the pain of its loss been as powerfully expressed as in The Cranes are Flying, one of the more enchanting and humane pieces of Soviet cinema.

Film Synopsis

In Soviet Russia, Veronika and Boris are two young people who are deeply in love, but before they can marry World War II intervenes to separate them.  A patriot, Boris volunteers to serve his country in the Red Army.   When her parents are killed in a German air raid, Veronika moves in with Boris' family and is soon being pursued by her beloved's cousin Mark. An aspiring pianist, Mark managed to escape being drafted into the army by bribing an official to grant him an exemption.  Even when Boris is reported missing in action, Veronika clings to the belief that he is still alive.  As the war drags on, Veronika and her adopted family are driven eastwards towards Sibera.  Now unhappily married to Mark, Veronika works as a nurse, assisting her uncle whilst her husband amuses himself at parties.  One day, Veronika is visited by a soldier who breaks the news that Boris was shot dead.  Even now, the young woman cannot accept that her loved one has been taken from her.  She clings to the hope that once the war is over he will return to her...