The Cranes Are Flying
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| The Cranes are Flying | |
|---|---|
 Film poster |
|
| Directed by | Mikhail Kalatozov |
| Produced by | Mosfilm |
| Written by | Viktor Rozov (play & screenplay) |
| Starring | Tatyana Samojlova Aleksey Batalov Vasili Merkuryev |
| Music by | Moisey Vaynberg |
| Cinematography | Sergei Urusevsky |
| Editing by | Mariya Timofeyeva |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) |  1957 21 March 1960 |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Country | USSR |
| Language | Russian |
| IMDb profile | |
The Cranes are Flying (Russian: Летят журавли, Letyat zhuravli) is a Soviet film about World War II. It depicts the cruelty of war and the damage suffered to the Soviet psyche as a result of World War II (known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War). It was directed at Mosfilm by the Georgian-born Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov in 1957 and stars Aleksey Batalov and Tatiana Samoilova. It was the second of two Soviet films to win the main prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
[edit] Synopsis
The film depicts a Soviet family of the professional class, with a father, mother, sons and cousins, and the girlfriend (more or less) of one of the sons. The girlfriend is nicknamed "Belka" ("squirrel").
The call to war sounds, and the country responds with great patriotic fervor. The son volunteers to defend his homeland from the attackers. He leaves for the war, leaving some unresolved romantic issues with his girlfriend, and a gift - a little white squirrel.
One of the cousina attempts a relationship with the girlfried, but is rebuffed. In the war, the son is lost, presumed killed, under the birches (pod beryozonykoy) in a swamp, saving a fellow soldier.
The German blitzkrieg then begins, and the family is terrorized by a night of bombing that shatters all hopes for a peaceful life. In the midst of the bombing a relationship develops between the cousin and the girlfriend.
The Soviet western areas are evacuated: the cities, farms and factories are removed to the safer eastern areas. Evacuation on such a massive scale is of course chaotic, leading to further dramas, including the finding, and perhaps adopting, of a child who has lost its parent, and the creation of families, not through bonds of love, but of convenience or need.
In a hospital, the father, who is a doctor, gives a speech to a wounded soldier about the soldier's unfaithful girlfriend, which comes as a stinging rebuke to the soldier's nurse, Belka. A friend of the lost son confirms the death of the son.
The cousin, now a husband of convenience, is then found to have betrayed Belka, the dead son, and the motherland not once, but several times.
The film concludes with life going on; hope is perhaps frail, but not lost.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by: Friendly Persuasion |
Palme d'Or 1958 |
Succeeded by: Black Orpheus |
