THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Letyat zhuravli) A
Russia (94 mi) 1957
d: Mikhail Kalatozov
1956 was the 20th Congress of the Communist Party and Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a speech denouncing Stalin and the Stalinist
purges and the gulag labor systems, revealing information that was previously
forbidden, publicly revealing horrible new truths, which opened the door
for a new Soviet Cinema led by Mikhail Kalatozov, once Stalin’s head of film
production. This film features a Red Army that is NOT victorious, in fact
they are encircled, in a retreat mode, with many people dying, including the
hero, in a film set after 06-02-41, the German invasion of Russia when Germany
introduced Operation Barbarossa, a blitzkrieg invasion intended to bring about a
quick victory and the ultimate enslavement of the Slavs, and very nearly
succeeded, actually getting within 20 miles of Moscow in what was a Red Army
wipe out, a devastation of human losses, where throughout the war 22 to 26 million Russians died, or 15
– 20% of the entire population. Historically, this was a moment of great
trauma and suffering, a psychological shock to the Russian people, but the Red
Army held and prolonged the war 4 more years until they were ultimately
victorious.
During the war, Stalin used the war genre in films for
obvious morale boosting, introducing female heroines who were ultra-patriotic
and strong and idealistic, suggesting that if females could be so successful
and patriotic, then Russia could expect at least as much from their soldiers. Stalin eliminated the mass hero of the
proletariat and replaced it with an individual, bold leader who was successful
at killing many of the enemy, an obvious reference to Stalin himself, who was
always portrayed in film as a bold, wise and victorious leader. But Kalatozov
changed this depiction, as THE CRANES ARE FLYING was made after Stalin’s death,
creating a political thaw and causing a worldwide sensation, winning the
Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or in 1958, as well as the Best Director and
Best Actress (Tatyana Samojlova), reawakening the West to Soviet Cinema for the
first time since Eisenstein’s IVAN THE TERRIBLE (1944) in the 40’s.
Adapated by Viktor Rozov from his own play, this
film features brilliant, breathtaking, and extremely mobile camera work
from his extraordinary cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, using spectacular
crane and tracking shots that literally glide through the streets, always
creating an exhilarating sense of motion, featuring near hallucinogenic images
of wartime, battlefields, also Moscow and crowded streets that are urgently
vivid and real. The story is simple, a couple blissfully in love are
separated by the German invasion. Boris (Aleksey
Batalov) is called to the front leaving Veronica behind, who is superbly played
by Tatyana Samojlova, who represents for Soviet films a more truthful
character, asking Boris selfishly, “What about me?” when he announces he is off
to war. When Boris hears his father, a
doctor at the hospital, consoling a wounded, demented soldier who wants an
immediate end to his life because his girl married someone who stayed at home,
his father tells him that it would be her disgrace, not his, as she would never
know his bravery, describing such a woman:
“There will be no pardon for her.”
With Boris off to war, Veronica is chased by Boris’s cousin
Mark (Aleksandr Shvorin), who uses his corrupt influence to get an exemption
from serving in the army, eventually raping Veronica in a visually dizzying air
raid sequence, where Veronica is under siege from Mark at the same time Russia
is under siege from Germany, mirroring the war in her personal relationship,
revealing the enemy within. Losing one’s
virginity was cause for marriage in Soviet society, which actually boosted
Mark’s chances, particularly after not hearing from Boris after 4 years of war,
so he was presumed dead. But she hates
Mark and retains her romantic yearning for Boris, as expressed in one of the
many brilliant scenes when she actually exposes Mark cheating on her. In perhaps the sequence of the film, her mind
in utter turmoil, shot in a wintry bleakness, she runs towards a bridge with a
train following closely behind her, a moment when the viewer is wondering if
she might throw herself in front of that train in despair, but instead she
saves a 3-year old boy also named Boris who was about to be hit by a car.
Another exceptional scene captures the death of Boris on the
battlefield, who dies a senseless death, and his thoughts spin and whirl in a
beautiful montage of trees, sky, leaves, all spinning in a kaleidoscope of his
own thoughts and dreams, including his lost love, envisioning an imaginary
wedding with Veronica. This film features the famous line, “You can dream
when the war is over.” In the final sequence, when the war is finally
over and soldiers are returning in a mass celebratory scene on the streets,
where Veronica finally learns for certain that Boris died, all are happy and
excited with the soldier’s return, but Veronica is in utter despair, passing
out flowers to soldiers and strangers on the street in an extreme gesture of
generosity and selflessness revealing with poetic insight “cranes white
and gray floating in the sky.”
The film was released in 1957 in Russia, and according to
some reviews, “the silence in the theater was profound, the wall between art and
living life had fallen...and tears unlocked the doors.”
