The Cranes Are Flying [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Based on a play by V. Rusov, the Russian The Cranes are Flying is a love story set during the early years of World War II. With her boyfriend Boris (Alexei Batalov) on the front lines - and no sign of life from him for eons - Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova, Constantin Stanislavsky's grandniece) is raped by Boris's cousin, Fyodor (Vasily Merkuryev), during an air raid, and later accepts his marriage proposal, despite her lack of love for him - hoping that he'll eventually be able to replace her boyfriend. Several subsequent events (both joyous and melancholy) enable the heroine to rebuild her life, as well as restore her own sense of self-value; she is eventually told that Boris has died in action. The Cranes Are Flying won several international awards, and became a staple on the American art-house repertory circuit into the 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 1
• Subtitle: Eng
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Screen: Black and White
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Features:
  • New digital transfer, with restored image and sound
  • New and improved English subtitle translation

AWARDS

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Nominated Best Film - Any Source - 1958 (Mikhail Kalatozov)

• Cannes Film Festival

•     Won Palme d'Or - 1958
•     Won Special Mention - 1958 (Tatiana Samoilova)

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 1992

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Tatiana Samoilova - Veronica
       Alexei Batalov - Boris
       Vasily Merkuryev - Fyodor Ivanovich
       Alexander Shvorin - Mark
       Svetlana Kharitonova - Irina
       Konstantin Nikitin - Volodya
       Valentin Zubkov - Stepan
       Antonina Bogdanova
       Boris Kokovkin
       E. Kupriyanova
       Valentina Ananina
       Valentina Vladimirova
       O. Dzisko
       Nikolai Smorchkov

• Director:

  Mikhail Kalatozov

• Producer:

  Mikhail Kalatozov

• Screenwriter:

  V. Rozov

• Cinematographer:

  Sergei Urusevsky

• Composer (Music Score):

  M. Vainberg

• Editor:

  M. Timofeyeva

• Set Designer:

  Y. Svidetelev

REVIEW:

• It's a love story, it's a story of betrayal; it's a war drama, it's an anti-war diatribe, it's a tribute to the resiliency of Mother Russia, it's a dark and disturbing psychological melodrama of one woman's one bad choice and its consequences. Since its acclaimed appearance at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, where it received the Palm D'Or, and its crossover appeal to Cold War American film audiences and subsequent long run in repertory houses into the 1970s, Mikhail Kalatazov's deliriously charged film has somehow been relegated to the status of a curiosity. It deserves a re-examination, if only because it's a movie that, in a mere 90 minutes, manages to convey an amazing amount of personal and public history. The Soviet Union's entry into World War II is foreshadowed by one of the most lyrical courtships ever filmed, with Kalatazov's camera following Boris and his beloved "Squirrel" (Veronica) through the deserted pre-dawn streets. Veronica, played by the luminous Tatyana Samoylova (the grandniece of legendary acting coach Constantin Stanislavsky) misses an opportunity to see off her lover when his troop train leaves for the front, and she spends the rest of the story waiting for him, while relatives are killed, she is seduced by his cousin (during an air raid!), she is evacuated with Boris's family to Siberia, she is implicitly denounced by Boris's doctor father when he tries to cheer up a soldier patient who has just received a Dear John letter, she contemplates suicide, and she adopts an abandoned boy (named Boris!). If there's an overkill of irony at work in the story's machinations, it's neatly papered over by the prowling camera and striking compositions; Kalatazov is one of the few filmmakers who might be called an expressionistic realist. He has never met a crane shot he didn't like and uses every excuse to follow his characters up winding staircases and through crowds of people indifferent to their emotional turmoil. The film's politics may be muddled (it's not entirely clear here if the war really worth fighting), but the filmmaking is bold and rapturous, just as in Kalatazov's next great work, I Am Cuba. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi