The Cranes are Flying

It would be easy to mistake the opening sequence of Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes are Flying for any scene from any typical fluffy fifties' romance. The young couple frolics blissfully along the banks of a river, accordion music fills the soundtrack. The movie could, by all appearances, involve Audrey Hepburn and, say, Gregory Peck prancing along the embankment of the Seine or the Thames or whatnot. But, well, this movie is not fluffy, it's frankly not a romance, and it's one of the more visually stunning movies I've seen in some time.

The Cranes are Flying opens in Moscow, immediately before Germany's swift and brutal attack on the city. Veronica (or Squirrel) and Boris are madly in love. He writes little poems when not doing hard manual labor at the factory, she sings said little poems and flitters about happily. Then, unbeknownst to his dearest Squirrel, Boris voluntarily enlists in the Soviet army to fight off the German advance. Good and all for the country, but, well, not so good for Moose and Squirrel. He leaves for war, neither Veronica nor Boris' family (with whom she now lives) hears from him. In the midst of all of this, Moscow is brutally attacked, Boris' cousin Mark ("exempt" from the war) desperately tries to gain Veronica's affections, and eventually the whole family retreats with the rest of the city to the middle of Siberia.

Needless to say, it's all very melodramatic (which, admittedly, I'm always a sucker for), and there's plenty of swelling war music, a handful of explosions, and some awesome face-slapping to fill the film's very swift 95 minutes. It's not really the basic plot, however, that makes the movie; there are, after all, more movies about war-torn love affairs than I care to recount. Perhaps the most compelling elements of the plot remain those that were so shocking in the initial release. The film, which eventually won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1958, was one of the first of Soviet film's so-called "Thaw" period, where the tight grip of Stalin over culture product was relaxed, and where criticism of war and culture could finally be expressed. There are numerous asides in The Cranes are Flying that had to have been risque for their time (for example, Fyodor, Boris' father, rather harshly mocks the rote sympathies and patriotism of two representatives from the Young Communists League early in the film). When the family ends up in Siberia, Kalatozov shows us overcrowded hospitals, dying soldiers turned away, and those inside reduced to angry, bitter wrecks. And more importantly, he shows the very harsh reality of the betrayals people make in times of war.

The most outstanding elements of the film are, by far, the cinematography and editing. I sadly had to see this on DVD, but the good people at Criterion (and Mosfilm) have, as would be expected, turned out a beautiful crystal clear print. There are some truly splendid moments of cinematography here: in at least several scenes, a handheld camera is being used, once to track Squirrel as she runs through the crowds in Moscow; later, to track her feet along the jagged ground as she runs through the desolate Siberian snow. There are arguably moments when the otherwise perfect editing becomes a bit too fade-happy and psychologically overwrought, but it's largely visually stunning (certainly helped along by a high contrast black and white, also beautifully lit).

Veronica is an interesting heroine--she largely sulks for the majority of the movie, but somehow remains both feisty and sympathetic. There are some fairly problematic jumps in the timeline of her character; this doesn't pose a problem in comprehension so much as it does in the potential for character development. The audience is left to assume a number of things about her psychological state in the second half of the movie, and while I will forever appreciate a director who doesn't condescend to his audience by explaining everything, her development probably could have benefited from an additional scene at about the mid-way point. But that's nitpicking--it doesn't fundamentally flaw the narrative.

As an aside, I think the highlight of this movie may come early on in what could arguably be considered a thinly veiled rape scene. I mean, it's not a rape scene, but thirty years later it probably would have been (think the scene in Imitation of Life where Sarah Jane is beaten by her white boyfriend). It shows everything and nothing at the same time (hmm, how production codes perhaps actually benefited action). The lighting effects (Moscow is being bombed) combined with the sound (piano over explosions) combined with the frenzied action of Mark chasing down Veronica while he repeatedly yells "I love you" and she screams "Nyet"...Uh, yeah, just watch it. Scary and awesome.

This is the sort of movie making I always hope for. Classic verging on modern. Ye traditional melodrama storyline, plus subversion, plus brilliant camera work. I think people my age often ignore a good deal of Russian/Soviet film, probably as some lingering result of Cold War prejudices (or a laziness to read subtitles). But, you know, in the end, movies like this, like The Cranes are Flying, they're really just about a guy, a girl, and a whole lot of war. And, um, perhaps also about the Khrushchevian plan to make his country welcome his regime and forget about old Stalin...but enjoy it as fine cinema first, propoganda second.