This sumptuously filmed and superbly acted Russian film from the 1950’s is a must-see for any who love intelligent romantic melodrama. The cinematography is wonderfully innovative in a way that fully serves the story.

Historical Background: During the post-World War II Stalinist years in Russia, until Stalin’s death in 1953, the censorship exerted on Soviet filmmakers was extremely restrictive. Films had to glorify the state and Communism as a system and encourage sacrifice by Soviet citizens on behalf of the state. Obviously, criticism of state officials or policies was out of the question. After Stalin’s death, there was a substantial policy thaw and artists were again allowed at least a modicum of artistic license. Just as had happened after the death of Franco in Spain and after the end of the Cultural Revolution in China, the pent up frustrations among artists led to an immediate burst of creativity in post-Stalin Russia. One of the beneficiaries of the relaxation of restrictions was director Mikhail Kalatozov (1903-1973), who had been making films in the Soviet Union since the 1920’s. Viewers can witness in The Cranes Are Flying (1957) what amounts to the rebirth of a nation’s cinema as a creative force as well as the partial liberation of a people.

Kalatozov was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. His best early films, The Salt of Svanetia (1930) and Nail in the Boot (1932), so displeased Soviet authorities that Kalatozov was assigned to administrative activities and not allowed to make another film until 1939. As World War II was looming, Kalatozov was appointed chief administrator of soviet feature-film production and made the films Manly Courage (1939) and Invincible (1943) during the war years. He worked briefly in Los Angeles as a Soviet cultural representative to the United States. After Stalin’s death, Kalatozov resumed his directing career with True Friends (1954) and The Cranes are Flying (1957). The latter film received critical acclaim internationally, including the coveted Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. This glorious film has received exquisite mastering on DVD by Criterion as a companion to another great Soviet film and Academy Award winner from the 1950’s, Ballad of a Soldier (1959). The Cranes are Flying (“Letjat Zhuravli”) addressees themes that could not have been expressed in Stalin’s lifetime such as a distinctly sober perspective of the terrible toll of war on human lives and relationships.

The Story: The basics of the plot, based on a screenplay by Viktor Rosov, are familiar territory. A couple of young lovers are tragically torn apart by the terrible exigencies of war, with tragic consequences. It is the beauty with which the story is told that elevates this film to world class status. Boris (Alexei Batalov), a young factory worker, and Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) are so joyously in love that they can barely tolerate the hours between successive rendezvous. The film opens with a scene on a riverbank in Moscow in the evening where the two are sharing a few precious moments together before he heads off to work on the nightshift. They bill and coo, she comments on the V-shaped formation of cranes flying by overhead, and he calls her “Squirrel.” So oblivious are both to all but their love that they are soon soaked by the spray of a passing street cleaning truck. As soon as the sun rises, the two meet again as Boris gets off work. Boris walks Veronica home while most of Moscow is still slumbering. They set a place for their next get together, saying their goodbyes discretely at the bottom of the long stairs leading to the top floor apartment of Veronica’s family and she trudges up several flights. Suddenly remembering that they had not settled on a time for their next meeting, Boris races up the spiral stairwell catching up to his Squirrel just outside her door. They settle on a time with hand gestures and reluctantly part. Back in the apartments of their respective families, each tries to sneak quietly into bed, but their families already understand the intensity of the two lover’s passion for one another and expect that they will soon be married.

War is looming over all of Russia but Veronica reassures herself with the assumption that Boris will be able to get an exemption, especially because his father is a highly regarded physician. Boris’s father, Fyodor Ivanovich (Vasily Merkuryev), is also confident that his son will be exempted, having himself initiated efforts on his son’s behalf. Boris, however, is a man of high principle and, unbeknownst to Veronica or his father, he has already volunteered for duty should war break out. The romantic idyll of the two lovers is shattered by the surprise invasion of Russia by Germany on June 22nd, 1941. As Veronica and Boris are hanging drapes for the blackout and playfully talking about their future plans, Boris’ friend Stepan (Valentin Zubkov) arrives with their orders to report. Cruelly, it is the day before Veronica’s birthday. Moscow is in chaos as all of Russia must mobilize. Boris packs and hastily prepares a birthday present for Veronica – a toy Squirrel – placing a farewell note under the nuts in the squirrel’s basket. He asks his mother to give the gift to his beloved. Boris heads to the assembly area, which is a mob scene, with lovers and families all present to see their men off. Veronica tries desperately to get to Boris to wish him farewell, but is unable to wend her way through the crowd. Now each has to cope with a sense of incompleteness from their abrupt separation. Veronica’s plight is aggravated by her not finding the note left by Boris hidden in her birthday gift.

Veronica must deal not only with Boris’ absence and lack of communication but also with the unwelcome but persistent advances of his cousin Mark Alexandrovich (Alexander Shvorin). Mark is madly in love with Veronica, despite knowing that she is his cousin’s girlfriend. Mark is a talented pianist but also an unscrupulous schemer. He is determined to take advantage of his cousin's absence to win Veronica’s hand, if not her heart. The depth of Mark’s dishonesty becomes especially evident later in the film when we learn that he manipulated Fyodor’s efforts to get an exemption for Boris into an exemption for himself.

Veronika’s pain multiples when her family’s apartment is hit by a bomb, killing all except Veronika, who was out at the time. She is invited by Fyodor to move in with their family, since Fyodor considers her Boris’ fiancée, even though the pair were not technically engaged. This, unfortunately, brings Veronika into increasing contact with Mark. During an air raid, Veronika, in despair about Boris, refuses to go to the subway tunnel, which is serving as the air raid shelter. Mark remains behind with her and plays a furious scherzo on the piano to drown out the sounds of the falling bombs. As his piece reaches its dramatic climax the bombs fall especially close and the frightened Veronika ends up in Mark’s embrace. Mark’s lust for Veronika is now excited beyond his control. He forces a kiss on her and she slaps him repeatedly, yelling “Nyet, nyet.” She tries to leave but he chases her down. More slaps and “Nyet”s are to no avail. He picks her up and carries her to his bed, where she either surrenders or is raped – the extent of the violation is not fully evident. In any case, the pair are very soon announcing to Boris’ stunned and crushed family that they will soon be married.

Meanwhile, on the front, Boris jealousy protects his one precious picture of Veronika and takes exception to any suggestion that she is being disloyal to him at home. One such altercation results in he and another soldier, a harmonica player, being sent out on a reconnaissance mission to find a breakthrough point for the platoon. Boris bravely carries his exhausted companion to the relative safety of a wooded area, but Boris is suddenly hit. He looks up through the tall barren gray birch trees, experiencing intense vertigo. As the trees spins around, images of home are superimposed in Boris’ delirious mind. He is once again racing up the spiral staircase after his lover but, at the top of the stairs, she emerges from her apartment in a wedding dress – with Mark instead of Boris on her arm. Boris falls flat into the mud – perhaps dead, perhaps not. We, like Veronika, have no way of knowing at this point.

As the days and weeks pass by, Veronika grows increasingly guilt ridden about her decision to give up on waiting for Boris and to marry Mark, all the more so because she finds Mark increasingly intolerable. Her self-reproach comes to a head while she is serving in a hospital as a nurse. The doctor, Fyodor, has to be called urgently because one of the patients is so distraught about his lover having married another that he is trying to tear the bandages and casts from his wounds, to kill himself. Fyodor, quite ingeniously, calms the man by arguing that such a woman is not worth his love and that it is she who has lost all chance of happiness with a brave soldier as a husband. While this line of reasoning works wonders with the distraught soldier, it has quite another effect altogether on Veronika. She races from the hospital in a frenzy down a roadway toward a bridge overlooking the railroad track where a freight train is speeding by. This scene is marvelously filmed with an escalating tempo and we fully expect Veronika to leap to her death in front of the on-coming train. For a moment, we see the train through the rails on the side of the bridge in a brilliant stroboscopic sequence and we think she has jumped. At the crucial moment, however, Veronika spots a small child in the roadway behind her and an army truck bearing down on it. Her maternal instincts take over and she snatches the child from the path of the truck in the nick of time. The little boy of three has been separated from his parents. His name, of course, is “Boris.” She takes him home with her.

The young Boris is inconsolable in his unfamiliar surroundings and Veronika, looking for a toy to amuse him, thinks of her precious squirrel – her last gift from Boris. The squirrel, however, has been taken by Mark as a gift for a woman at a brothel that Mark frequents. Veronika goes to confront Mark and to recover her precious treasure. At the brothel, the present has been opened and the women have found Boris’ farewell note to Veronika. She arrives in time to recover her squirrel and, to her surprise, receive the unexpected note from her lost love. It begins, “On this day you came into the world, it’s hard to leave you.” It ends, “I love you. I have faith in you. Love, Boris.” She rushes home, determined to have done with Mark forever. She and Mark arrive there almost simultaneously, to discover that Fyodor has just learned how Mark got his exemption by cowardly substituting his own name for Boris’ in Fyodor’s request. Mark is sent packing by both Fyodor and Veronika.

SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP TO THEMES IF YOU WANT TO RETAIN THE MYSTERY OF THE ENDING UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE FILM.

The harmonica player shows up in Moscow to inform Fyodor that his son has died. Veronika is the only one at home when he arrives and receives the word first. The man, however, had not seen Boris actually buried and only knows for sure that he was mortally wounded. Veronika is determined not to make the mistake of not waiting a second time and chooses to retain hope that Boris will yet come home alive. Victory bells finally signal the conclusion of the war. The boys – some of the boys – will be returning home. The families crowd around the train station as the troop transport train pulls in, many welcoming loved ones, others still looking. Veronika finds Stepan but it is his sad duty to return to her the picture of herself that Boris had carried until his death. All Stepan can do is hand Veronika the bouquet of flowers that the government furnishes in lieu of the loved ones lost. Veronika embraces the bouquet as though it were Boris and, in her pain, wanders among the joyously embracing couples and families. The official spokesman speaks as follows: “Dear mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers! The happiness of our reunion is immeasurable. The heart of every Soviet citizen is filled with joy. Joy sings in our hearts. It is victory that has brought us this joy.” He pauses. Veronika’s face is aglow with love for her Boris as she presses her bouquet to her bosom. “But we shall not forget those left behind on the battlefield! We shall live not to destroy, but to build a new life!” Veronika is in a state of grace. A man nearby urges her to give her flowers to whomever they are for. They are for everyone, for Russia. She hands one to a soldier, then a woman, one to a grandchild, and one by one to various people in the crowd of celebrants. She looks into the sky and sees a V-shaped formation of cranes flying by overhead.

Themes: One central theme is the issue of loyalty and faithfulness of women on the home front for the men who risk their lives on the frontline during war. This is no shallow condemnation, however, of Veronika or others like her. The pain of her uncertainty is illuminated so that not only we but even Boris’ father understand her plight. It is Veronika’s self-reproach that is most important rather than our condemnation. Veronika’s emotional journey is fully engaging.

Secondly, this film also takes dead aim at the blind patriotism and war-mongering that invariably proves so devastating to countless individuals and relationships. Russia lost more soldiers in World War II than any other country but, under Stalin, Russian artists were required to continue to project the glory of sacrifice for one’s country. Yet, we all should know that memorials and bouquets are inadequate substitutes for husbands to their wives and fathers to their children. We in America, in our hour of unchallenged supremacy, would do well to remember the final twin messages of the Soviet spokesperson at the homecoming of the troops near the end of this film. (1) We shall not forget those left behind on the battlefields. (2) We shall live not to destroy, but to build a new life.

We must remember that no nation has ever destroyed all of its enemies. The only path to greater peace and security is through building a better world based on mutual respect and cooperation. “Strong but fair” is the standard of national conduct that is both efficacious and moral. Preemptive, unilateral, offensive actions are simply tickets to oblivion.

Production Values: The Cranes Are Flying is truly moving cinema. Some viewers may find it a bit too melodramatic for their tastes, but most will simply find it a treasure of a film. What raises this film above mere melodrama is the gorgeous and innovative cinematography that truly qualifies as visual poetry. The camera work for this film will simply blow you away. This was the second of four films for which Kalatozov teamed with cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky. Urusevsky draws on the full arsenal of standard camera techniques as well as some I’ve never seen before. There are deep focus shots as well as wide angle shots and numerous close-ups. There are long handheld tracking shots such as Veronika struggling to get through the crowd to see Boris one last time before he leaves for war. She climbs a fence and the camera climbs with her. She looks out over the crowd and the camera pans across the crowd as well. There are amazing crane shots such as when Veronika steps out into a street lined with tanks and suddenly the camera sweeps steadily upward to reveal the broad panorama, transposing us from the intimate to the grand.

There are three scenes in particular that are utterly stunning. One is the scene in which Mark forces himself on Veronika during the air raid. The frenzied piano music is juxtaposed against the bomb bursts and catapults into a scene of equally frenzied seduction. The second is when Boris is shot. The camera not only moves about in a graceful swirl but the image is a triple exposure, with the whirling trees superimposed on the spinning staircase in Moscow and wispy images of the bride's veil dancing about. The third amazing bit of cinematography occurs when Veronika rushes from the hospital toward possible suicide. Here Urusevsky uses a steady speedup to build dramatic tension. None of these camera techniques come across as superfluous technical wizardry. They all effectively serve the story. The Cranes Are Flying is shot in splendid high-contrast black-and-white. Urusevsky masterfully captures reflective light, such as sunlight sparkling off the river or the gleam in Veronica’s teary eyes.

Tatiana Samoilova provides an exquisite central performance for this film, full of expressiveness and emotional depth. It’s her film from beginning to end, though Aleksei Batalov holds up his end in the scenes in which he appears. Tatiana Samoilova had the title role in the beautiful Russian version of Anna Karenina in 1967.

Bottom-Line: This film was superbly mastered by Criterion from high quality source material provided courtesy of Mosfilm in Russia. There’s no extras whatsoever, which is a bit unusual for Criterion, but the quality of the film itself is so luminous as to make the absence of extras forgivable. If you’ve already treated yourself to Ballad of a Soldier and enjoyed it, rest assured that you’ll find The Cranes Are Flying an equal delight. I have a weak spot for Russian art – both in music and film – so I’m a bit prejudiced, perhaps, but all of the reviews that I read for this film from across the country were as lavish in their praise as I have intended to be. I highly recommend this film. It is in Russian with English subtitles and has a running time of 95 minutes.


*************************************************************************************************
You might want to check out these other excellent films from Russia and the U.S.S.R.:

Alexander Nevsky
Andrei Rublev
Anna Karenina
Ballad of a Soldier
Burnt By the Sun
Come and See
Dersu Uzala
Don Quixote
Freeze Die
Ivan the Terrible
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
Nostalghia
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Solaris
Strike
War and Peace

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age