The Cranes Are Flying. (12A.)
Directed by Mikhael Kalatozov. 1957.
Starring Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev, Aleksandr Schvurin. Black and white. Out on Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection. 92 mins.
This bleak tale of love torn apart by war is what passed for throwing off the shackles in the Soviet Union. Stalin dead, Khrushchev in power, this was a little window for filmmakers to express themselves more freely. The Cranes are Flying is a bleak little melodrama, a glum time all round, but with its striking angles and extravagant camera movements, it could almost be their equivalent of A Hard Day's Night.
Veronika meets Boris every evening under the brutal concrete slabs of a Moscow bridge. Sultry Veronika ( Samojlova) is quite the catch in pre-war Moscow but Boris (the slightly Benedict Cumberbatch-like Batalov) is an idealist. Though he is could qualify for an exemption, when the great patriotic war starts he is straight off to the frontline, leaving Veronika to try and fend off the slimy advance of pianist Mark (Schvurin.)
Kalatozov is most famous for the later I Am Cuba and his work with cameraman Sergey Urusevskiy. There's nothing here to compare with the incredible, look-at-me tracking shots the pair pulled off for the later film, but here they contrived a series of shots that give vitality to a mundane plot. The first example is a delirious shot of Boris bounding up the stairs in an apartment block, the camera swirling around as it tracks his ascent and capturing the euphoria of his romantic intensity. The story is a bit of plod but the camera is often impressible, bounding with life.
In the late fifties, Cranes was a sensation, particularly in the west where it made off with the Barn Door at Cannes. Western filmmakers and critics marvelled at the camera work. Sixty years on it doesn't seem quite so sensational, but it still rather lovely.
Features.
New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Directed by Mikhael Kalatozov. 1957.
Starring Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev, Aleksandr Schvurin. Black and white. Out on Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection. 92 mins.
This bleak tale of love torn apart by war is what passed for throwing off the shackles in the Soviet Union. Stalin dead, Khrushchev in power, this was a little window for filmmakers to express themselves more freely. The Cranes are Flying is a bleak little melodrama, a glum time all round, but with its striking angles and extravagant camera movements, it could almost be their equivalent of A Hard Day's Night.
Veronika meets Boris every evening under the brutal concrete slabs of a Moscow bridge. Sultry Veronika ( Samojlova) is quite the catch in pre-war Moscow but Boris (the slightly Benedict Cumberbatch-like Batalov) is an idealist. Though he is could qualify for an exemption, when the great patriotic war starts he is straight off to the frontline, leaving Veronika to try and fend off the slimy advance of pianist Mark (Schvurin.)
Kalatozov is most famous for the later I Am Cuba and his work with cameraman Sergey Urusevskiy. There's nothing here to compare with the incredible, look-at-me tracking shots the pair pulled off for the later film, but here they contrived a series of shots that give vitality to a mundane plot. The first example is a delirious shot of Boris bounding up the stairs in an apartment block, the camera swirling around as it tracks his ascent and capturing the euphoria of his romantic intensity. The story is a bit of plod but the camera is often impressible, bounding with life.
In the late fifties, Cranes was a sensation, particularly in the west where it made off with the Barn Door at Cannes. Western filmmakers and critics marvelled at the camera work. Sixty years on it doesn't seem quite so sensational, but it still rather lovely.
Features.
New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New interview with scholar Ian Christie on why the film is a landmark of Soviet cinema
- Audio interview from 1961 with director Mikhail Kalatozov
- Hurricane Kalatozov, a documentary from 2009 on the Georgian director’s complex relationship with the Soviet government
- Segment from a 2008 program about the film’s cinematography, featuring original storyboards and an interview with actor Alexei Batalov
- Interview from 2001 with filmmaker Claude Lelouch on the film’s French premiere at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by critic Chris Fujiwara
