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Two films I like quite a lot, but neither of them made my ballot.
Here's what I wrote on The Cranes Are Flying some time ago.
I don't have a review of The Great Escape, but I also enjoyed that one. The somewhat relaxed and light-hearted portrayal of the prisoners helped to make the occasional bursts of darkness and the comparably tenser final act hit hard, yet without ultimately betraying this tone in the process. Great balancing act there. I haven't thought much about it since for some reason, but I'm sure it would still hold up if I were to rewatch it.
Here's what I wrote on The Cranes Are Flying some time ago.
WARNING: spoilers below
While I'm not the biggest fan of classic romance films, I was definitely eager to watch this film for this thread as I've been meaning to get to it for a while. While I'm not sure I consider it to be a great film, I liked a lot about it and another viewing may get me to like it even more.
After finishing it, I was rather surprised as to how it was a fairly low-key romance. After Boris left for WWII, most of the film followed Veronika's attempts of coping with his absence and the fear of him being killed, while she was stuck in a loveless relationship with Mark. Due to this, the film maintained a steady atmosphere of despair, yet never felt like it was wallowing in this. A major thing which sets this film above most other classical romances I've seen is that it refuses to tie itself up into a neat bow in terms of its emotional register. Many tragedies befall Veronika and, though she isn't able to recover from all of them, the ending shows that, even if she can't be made whole again, she can still move on. I found the ending to be more layered and impactful than what I normally see in romance films.
The camerawork and editing were also really impressive. The how-did-they-shoot-that scene of Boris running up a set of stairs as the camera followed him was pretty great, a dreamlike sequence of Boris imagining a wedding between he and Veronika was nothing short of technically impressive, and the air raid shown from the perspective of Veronika's apartment ranks among the most claustrophobic things I've seen in film in a while. I also appreciated how some of the lighting used in the happier and playful moments of the film had a strong, dreamlike glare to it (as could be seen with the sunlight in the opening, for example). These scenes caused the film to be stylistically impressive and they make me more excited to watch Kalatozov's Letter Never Sent for this thread.
With all that being said, while there's a lot to love about this film, I'll need to watch it again to decide if I think it's great or just really good since I'm still mulling over a major directorial choice in it. Around the middle of the film, Boris is killed in the war while on a reconnaissance mission. While his death is certainly unexpected and among the most visually and technically impressive scenes in the film, I did wonder whether his death would've had a stronger impact had it been saved for later. As it stood, I felt that his death sacrificed some of the narrative tension I enjoyed over whether he'd survive. To be fair though, this was in service of setting up an even bleaker tone in the second half with Mark being more at the forefront. Since I'm not quite sure what to make of that scene and the effect it has on the film as of now though, I'll have to rewatch the film to decide whether I liked this choice or not.
Regardless of what direction the film goes in in the second half though, I quite enjoyed this film and I found that it mostly lived up to its reputation as a great film. Another viewing may get me to like it even more.
After finishing it, I was rather surprised as to how it was a fairly low-key romance. After Boris left for WWII, most of the film followed Veronika's attempts of coping with his absence and the fear of him being killed, while she was stuck in a loveless relationship with Mark. Due to this, the film maintained a steady atmosphere of despair, yet never felt like it was wallowing in this. A major thing which sets this film above most other classical romances I've seen is that it refuses to tie itself up into a neat bow in terms of its emotional register. Many tragedies befall Veronika and, though she isn't able to recover from all of them, the ending shows that, even if she can't be made whole again, she can still move on. I found the ending to be more layered and impactful than what I normally see in romance films.
The camerawork and editing were also really impressive. The how-did-they-shoot-that scene of Boris running up a set of stairs as the camera followed him was pretty great, a dreamlike sequence of Boris imagining a wedding between he and Veronika was nothing short of technically impressive, and the air raid shown from the perspective of Veronika's apartment ranks among the most claustrophobic things I've seen in film in a while. I also appreciated how some of the lighting used in the happier and playful moments of the film had a strong, dreamlike glare to it (as could be seen with the sunlight in the opening, for example). These scenes caused the film to be stylistically impressive and they make me more excited to watch Kalatozov's Letter Never Sent for this thread.
With all that being said, while there's a lot to love about this film, I'll need to watch it again to decide if I think it's great or just really good since I'm still mulling over a major directorial choice in it. Around the middle of the film, Boris is killed in the war while on a reconnaissance mission. While his death is certainly unexpected and among the most visually and technically impressive scenes in the film, I did wonder whether his death would've had a stronger impact had it been saved for later. As it stood, I felt that his death sacrificed some of the narrative tension I enjoyed over whether he'd survive. To be fair though, this was in service of setting up an even bleaker tone in the second half with Mark being more at the forefront. Since I'm not quite sure what to make of that scene and the effect it has on the film as of now though, I'll have to rewatch the film to decide whether I liked this choice or not.
Regardless of what direction the film goes in in the second half though, I quite enjoyed this film and I found that it mostly lived up to its reputation as a great film. Another viewing may get me to like it even more.
I don't have a review of The Great Escape, but I also enjoyed that one. The somewhat relaxed and light-hearted portrayal of the prisoners helped to make the occasional bursts of darkness and the comparably tenser final act hit hard, yet without ultimately betraying this tone in the process. Great balancing act there. I haven't thought much about it since for some reason, but I'm sure it would still hold up if I were to rewatch it.
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