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‘The Cranes Are Flying’ begins in the midst of a beautiful romance between two young people, Boris and Veronika, who both love each other like there is no tomorrow. Even despite of setting up the story well enough, everything felt a little too forward, fast paced, deliberately dreamy and almost delusionally dandy, in my opinion. I feared this film would be one of those older films that feels too on the nose in terms of emotions and storytelling – thankfully though, that was not the case at all. In a way, this opening does create a decent contrast – which is something the director constantly plays with and succeeds in throughout the entire film – and in this case, the couple are inside their own little bubble of wonder, where the open streets combined with the wide shots and a wonderfully cheerful soundtrack create a great sense of a calm and conflict-free setting before the war. As we all know, this very setting would later become a clustered, compact, chaotic and cold place to be, so despite my lesser thoughts on these scenes, a prologue like this works perfectly for what the film wants to set up – and by ending the scene by silencing the soundtrack and singling out the bells of the clock tower, subtly lead your mind away from the affective love story and hints at something more menacing or threatening, if you can put it like that, or simply, what is to come. In a way, the whole clock type-of-deal works as something more significant than that later in the story.
After the opening credits the love story becomes more credible and less extravagant, which is a good thing, because now we get to see the characters on a more personal level. The depiction of their love is less dreamy and more focused on the “forbidden feeling” between them or simply the secretive and constantly uncontrollable longing for their loved one. I absolutely adored how they whispered to each other, trying to hold back a little, only to have Boris run up the stairs accompanied by the resurrection of the soundtrack and with a stunning memorable scene composition as well – once again, another scene that has some significance later on. Both of them then go their own way and as we know war breaks out. This was another aspect I felt like could have been handled better, but I did admire the subtle and sudden approach, having the family in the apartment and the announcement held apart from this setting, only heard through the window and done with no build-up or bloated dramatic approach. In a sense this is a more believable method that definitely suits and benefits the movie. I also want to add a little ad-lib about the relationship between Veronika and Mark. I feel like the love triangle is handled well throughout, where we, as an audience, is introduced to that aspect early on as well as the clear obsession that Mark has about Veronika, which has been set up right and not just thrown recklessly into the mix along the way. Mark is not just a side-character or plot device either, which he could have easily been, but he works as a great contrast for the story and the characters, as well as a thematic comment on war and our world.
Boris ends up volunteering and entering the war, while Mark gets a deferral from conscription. The grand goodbye ceremony really resonated with me and was made raw and perfectly real, while having the huge fence divide the people and power the dramatic force. It really created a great sense of separation that for once wasn’t only about one aspect, but many more. Of course we had the center story of Boris becoming worried and anxious about whether or not he will see the love of his life before his departure, while also cutting to Veronika’s version of the same scenario; but what really works here is how the director chose to set up the scene. First the sense and scope of chaos is handled with unlimited control and the director succeeds in both the wide and narrow shots. Having Veronika run through the masses feels up close and personal, with a camera that is close to what is happening when she comes out of the bus, only to have it rise above it all – and all in one tracking shot – as you see yet another side to the same scenario. Then comes the obviously genius composition of a tracking shot that really isn’t about what it is tracking but rather about what it isn’t.
The tracking target suddenly becomes the background, while the many mixed emotional encounters of all these individual people and families being there, becomes the very front and center of it all. As we follow Veronika in a wide shot we cross in and out of close-ups that tells different stories and shows different aspects of war and how we deal with it differently. We see couples kissing, children crying, people singing and people standing in silence; in many ways, this whole film is done with emotions as the driving force and often also the very choice of composition, editing and plot exposition and I love that about it. We learn so much by being told so little outside of images operating entirely on its own. Also, the fact that our main characters fail to ever meeting again inside the masses to exchange explicit and exaggerated affections for each other is yet another case of anti-Hollywood at its very finest and most fearless so far. The camera work once again completely amazes me and makes you wonder if the director was operating way ahead of time here. Moving around men on duty and mothers going loony more than a heavy duty camera could or should do is completely spellbinding to watch. Back then you didn’t exactly have compact point-and-shoot cameras, so moving it so fluently, fast-paced and fault-free is frankly beyond belief.
The ceremony is filled with marvelous music while being magnified in scale, so when the image fades to black, the contrast isn’t just about going from light to pitch black in color, but also in mood. The sound is dead silent as Veronika calls for any news about Boris and when she steps out of the telephone booth we move from an enclosed area to an enormous open space, which was once filled with joy, but is now a cold, dark and depressing place to be. This contrast is as clear as daylight and the war setting is evident and immediate. I mention contrast a lot, as I said I would, but that is simply because this is an expert example of how to use them and this movie is pretty much a compilation of different contrasts that all create different beats to the central story. Soon after this the bombing alert fills the silence at Veronika’s home and her parents refuses to leave the apartment to go with her to the safety of the subway tunnels. As soon as the bombing is over with, she is suddenly in a hurry to get home once she sees some firetrucks flying by. This is yet another beautiful shot, as we move from a calm conversation to a quick tracking shot, which dissolves into smoke and darkness and disappears straight into the next shot of a stunning set piece of a burning building, which is filmed fantastically well. Once again, director Mikhail Kalatozov finds his own crooked line of control inside the chaos of this catastrophe.
Veronika runs up the stairs as our gut drops at the end result, which sees her home completely destroyed by the bombings. The epic score ends in a climax and eventually scorches our souls with a more tender melody, accompanied by the amazing sound design; fire burning through her memories and the clock on the wall slowly ticking away – slowly rising – only to lower itself again once she covers her ears and we get another glimpse of the extraordinary cinematography when her face is filled with shadows of the dancing flames in front of her – especially the shadow work throughout the entire picture is worth more than a mention – it is absolutely amazing. In the aftermath of this tragedy Veronika ends up staying with the family of Boris, where Mark is asked to support her and take good care of her. We end up with the two of them alone in the apartment, with Mark playing the piano and Veronika sobbing away in the corner, only to have the alarms go off again. With her family dead and still no sound from Boris, not much matter at the moment. Mark, as the coward he is, obviously wants to leave as fast as possible, but Veronika refuses to move. Mark gets frustrated and inside a mixed mind of emotions he sits down to play the piano once again. What follows may be the best scene of the entire movie, though admittedly in the midst of equally impressive scenes.
What follows here is shot after shot after shot of framable compositions, which collides with an extraordinary sound design to complete the experience. And as the piano-playing gets more and more aggressive the loud bombings follow the same pattern and find its way to the apartment. The intensity of the bombs goes hand in hand with the intensity of emotions rising in the midst of war; things break, gets torn apart, ruined, crushed and ultimately hit you like a slap in the face. The face-off between Mark and Veronika is intense and horrifying as they almost turn into beast and prey, enemy and escapist, as Mark rises above Veronika, inside the shadows, with a look of truly terrifying proportions. He notices the chance to cunningly caress her, though he does so in a forceful and almost frightful manner. Veronika pushes herself away as the dance of dominance in the midst of disasters begins. Set to intense music that sends the mind straight towards something along the lines of a dramatic musical ballet, director Mikhail Kalatazov creates his own ballet of cinematic beauty, creating a conflict inside the conflict. This scene is so mesmerizing and masterfully shot that all the senses are stimulated all at once and every emotion comes clashing as the climax presents itself; all the music stops, Veronika drops to the floor, and Mark picks her up and carries her through the room. We then shift from steps on sharp broken glass to broken men at the battlefield in the soft soggy mud and suddenly the crystal clear contrast is a barrier thicker than ever and yet so close to home.
What comes after is an additional anti-dramatic decision by the director, where the one main character, Boris, is killed off on the battlefield – and not in a necessarily heroic and masculine manner, though it does happen because of him being kind of a hero. He is send out towards the enemy lines and in an attempt to rescue the soldier he just had an argument with, he is shot dead at a place where he believed to be more safe. The shot happens suddenly and out of nowhere and what follows is a dreamy montage of sorts, which is both beautiful and haunting at the same time, where Boris sees his life flash before his eyes. It is a collection of core memories from the past, current events from the present and even things from the future. This compilation of things that was, is, and may become, is all incredibly intervened inside a technically brilliant cross-cutting montage of images, which creatively combines the spinning sense of lying dead on the ground with the sense of feeling alive in the past – the mix of the spinning stairs and the spinning trees is yet another beautiful contrast to add to the collection. In a way the story peaks right about here, at least for me, since what follows becomes a little too hollow and not harrowing enough. I get the importance of the time spend further East, away from the German offensive, but it tends to become a little slow, a little shallow and slightly messy, confused and unbalanced. This middle piece was pretty much the only slightly negative thing I had to say about the movie, but it might also change for the positive with a second visit.
Of course there is memorable points even to the minor pitfalls; Mark finally gets exposed to who he really is and what he has done, presenting him as someone, who not only let his country down but his whole family. We also finally get a parallel to the piece of paper in the basket of the toy squirrel. And most importantly, the father of Boris utters a very important speech, which ends up being uplifting for some and unsettling for others, the latter being Veronika, who is directly impacted by the words in the speech and decides to run away and possibly end her life. Dare I say it, yet another fantastic scene follows, where the emotions of Veronika are at their peak and ready to pop, which is shown through the shaky and distracting camera work as she runs away. She also runs right by a fence, which is a brilliant and very original shot, where the fence almost makes the entire experience feel like a collection of still images presented at high speed, resulting in what is almost a “stop motion effect” that feels fragmented and frantic… exactly like her emotions. She ends up on a bridge, over a train track, but instead of jumping and taking her own life she ends up saving someone else’s – a little boy, coincidently named Boris.
The little boy awards her with a little life and reason for a short period of time and things start to look better, at least until she is told about the fatal outcome for her one true love. Veronika refuses to believe anything until she has heard the news from one of Boris’ best friends, Stephan. Finally, the homecoming comes along with a clear contrast to the ceremony at the beginning of the film. We are reminded of the beautiful and haunting tracking shot at the beginning with the main character, who is searching to see her loved one for one last goodbye, but never does. Finally, the war comes to an end, the soldiers come home, but Boris is nowhere in sight. She searchers for him once again, in the hope of them greeting each other like it was the first time they met, but instead the greeting becomes a goodbye – a goodbye she never really gets to say. Watching Veronika running through people crying of joy and her crying of sadness is something that sticks with you, especially as the scene continues, once Stephan stands tall to talk about the terrors of war in more than one meaning.
When Veronika gives us a small glimpse of both realization and revelation and starts to walk around the crowd, handing out flowers for the falling men, was a feeling more uplifting and bittersweet than any other. It was hopeful, thoughtful and honest. And as she looks up to the sky – a place once occupied by bombing planes – now holds cranes like ships, flying high in the sky. ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ is a cold, cold war concept of concentrated emotions that can and will eventually create beautiful cinema even when made at the height of the Cold War. This movie is an A-bomb in more than one sense of the word and I would probably award it with a grade-A if I could grasp it all on one watch. This entire film is close to a masterpiece, going all the way from subtle to sharp social and political comments and clear cut contrasts, resulting in pure cinema painted on canvases. This is not just art in cinema but art in general – and Mikhail Kalatozov is the General himself...
— MOVIEMEDITATION PRESENTS —
Летят журавли
______________________________________________
THE CRANES ARE FLYING
______________________________________________
Cranes like ships, sailing up in the sky,
White ones and grey ones, with long beaks, they fly...
______________________________________________
The theme of war is a tough one to crack on the cinema screen, regularly resulting in a depiction that is dramatically driven by the subjective and often political standpoint of a director to the point of an emotional manipulation and social overruling. Presenting a story of war comes prepacked with obvious emotions, but dealing with such a strong subject often artificially articulates the plot in which one opinion becomes too strong to be merely satirical or sharp social commentary – instead it becomes purely a personal practice of the medium where the film falls to the ground because of being generated almost solely from a subjective mind or a subjective matter. Sometimes films like that can be really intriguing if the director presents his personal point of view in such a perfect way, that even if the audience is miles apart from what the director thinks and feels, we are still able to either understand or be overwhelmed by what we see on screen. Trying to find the right path to walk for a war film is frequently a war in itself concerning serious, satirical, cinematic, collective and self-absorbed decisions and the balance in between all those elements.
______________________________________________
*This review contains spoilers*
Летят журавли
______________________________________________
THE CRANES ARE FLYING
______________________________________________
Cranes like ships, sailing up in the sky,
White ones and grey ones, with long beaks, they fly...
______________________________________________
The theme of war is a tough one to crack on the cinema screen, regularly resulting in a depiction that is dramatically driven by the subjective and often political standpoint of a director to the point of an emotional manipulation and social overruling. Presenting a story of war comes prepacked with obvious emotions, but dealing with such a strong subject often artificially articulates the plot in which one opinion becomes too strong to be merely satirical or sharp social commentary – instead it becomes purely a personal practice of the medium where the film falls to the ground because of being generated almost solely from a subjective mind or a subjective matter. Sometimes films like that can be really intriguing if the director presents his personal point of view in such a perfect way, that even if the audience is miles apart from what the director thinks and feels, we are still able to either understand or be overwhelmed by what we see on screen. Trying to find the right path to walk for a war film is frequently a war in itself concerning serious, satirical, cinematic, collective and self-absorbed decisions and the balance in between all those elements.
______________________________________________
*This review contains spoilers*
‘The Cranes Are Flying’ begins in the midst of a beautiful romance between two young people, Boris and Veronika, who both love each other like there is no tomorrow. Even despite of setting up the story well enough, everything felt a little too forward, fast paced, deliberately dreamy and almost delusionally dandy, in my opinion. I feared this film would be one of those older films that feels too on the nose in terms of emotions and storytelling – thankfully though, that was not the case at all. In a way, this opening does create a decent contrast – which is something the director constantly plays with and succeeds in throughout the entire film – and in this case, the couple are inside their own little bubble of wonder, where the open streets combined with the wide shots and a wonderfully cheerful soundtrack create a great sense of a calm and conflict-free setting before the war. As we all know, this very setting would later become a clustered, compact, chaotic and cold place to be, so despite my lesser thoughts on these scenes, a prologue like this works perfectly for what the film wants to set up – and by ending the scene by silencing the soundtrack and singling out the bells of the clock tower, subtly lead your mind away from the affective love story and hints at something more menacing or threatening, if you can put it like that, or simply, what is to come. In a way, the whole clock type-of-deal works as something more significant than that later in the story.
After the opening credits the love story becomes more credible and less extravagant, which is a good thing, because now we get to see the characters on a more personal level. The depiction of their love is less dreamy and more focused on the “forbidden feeling” between them or simply the secretive and constantly uncontrollable longing for their loved one. I absolutely adored how they whispered to each other, trying to hold back a little, only to have Boris run up the stairs accompanied by the resurrection of the soundtrack and with a stunning memorable scene composition as well – once again, another scene that has some significance later on. Both of them then go their own way and as we know war breaks out. This was another aspect I felt like could have been handled better, but I did admire the subtle and sudden approach, having the family in the apartment and the announcement held apart from this setting, only heard through the window and done with no build-up or bloated dramatic approach. In a sense this is a more believable method that definitely suits and benefits the movie. I also want to add a little ad-lib about the relationship between Veronika and Mark. I feel like the love triangle is handled well throughout, where we, as an audience, is introduced to that aspect early on as well as the clear obsession that Mark has about Veronika, which has been set up right and not just thrown recklessly into the mix along the way. Mark is not just a side-character or plot device either, which he could have easily been, but he works as a great contrast for the story and the characters, as well as a thematic comment on war and our world.
Boris ends up volunteering and entering the war, while Mark gets a deferral from conscription. The grand goodbye ceremony really resonated with me and was made raw and perfectly real, while having the huge fence divide the people and power the dramatic force. It really created a great sense of separation that for once wasn’t only about one aspect, but many more. Of course we had the center story of Boris becoming worried and anxious about whether or not he will see the love of his life before his departure, while also cutting to Veronika’s version of the same scenario; but what really works here is how the director chose to set up the scene. First the sense and scope of chaos is handled with unlimited control and the director succeeds in both the wide and narrow shots. Having Veronika run through the masses feels up close and personal, with a camera that is close to what is happening when she comes out of the bus, only to have it rise above it all – and all in one tracking shot – as you see yet another side to the same scenario. Then comes the obviously genius composition of a tracking shot that really isn’t about what it is tracking but rather about what it isn’t.
The tracking target suddenly becomes the background, while the many mixed emotional encounters of all these individual people and families being there, becomes the very front and center of it all. As we follow Veronika in a wide shot we cross in and out of close-ups that tells different stories and shows different aspects of war and how we deal with it differently. We see couples kissing, children crying, people singing and people standing in silence; in many ways, this whole film is done with emotions as the driving force and often also the very choice of composition, editing and plot exposition and I love that about it. We learn so much by being told so little outside of images operating entirely on its own. Also, the fact that our main characters fail to ever meeting again inside the masses to exchange explicit and exaggerated affections for each other is yet another case of anti-Hollywood at its very finest and most fearless so far. The camera work once again completely amazes me and makes you wonder if the director was operating way ahead of time here. Moving around men on duty and mothers going loony more than a heavy duty camera could or should do is completely spellbinding to watch. Back then you didn’t exactly have compact point-and-shoot cameras, so moving it so fluently, fast-paced and fault-free is frankly beyond belief.
The ceremony is filled with marvelous music while being magnified in scale, so when the image fades to black, the contrast isn’t just about going from light to pitch black in color, but also in mood. The sound is dead silent as Veronika calls for any news about Boris and when she steps out of the telephone booth we move from an enclosed area to an enormous open space, which was once filled with joy, but is now a cold, dark and depressing place to be. This contrast is as clear as daylight and the war setting is evident and immediate. I mention contrast a lot, as I said I would, but that is simply because this is an expert example of how to use them and this movie is pretty much a compilation of different contrasts that all create different beats to the central story. Soon after this the bombing alert fills the silence at Veronika’s home and her parents refuses to leave the apartment to go with her to the safety of the subway tunnels. As soon as the bombing is over with, she is suddenly in a hurry to get home once she sees some firetrucks flying by. This is yet another beautiful shot, as we move from a calm conversation to a quick tracking shot, which dissolves into smoke and darkness and disappears straight into the next shot of a stunning set piece of a burning building, which is filmed fantastically well. Once again, director Mikhail Kalatozov finds his own crooked line of control inside the chaos of this catastrophe.
Veronika runs up the stairs as our gut drops at the end result, which sees her home completely destroyed by the bombings. The epic score ends in a climax and eventually scorches our souls with a more tender melody, accompanied by the amazing sound design; fire burning through her memories and the clock on the wall slowly ticking away – slowly rising – only to lower itself again once she covers her ears and we get another glimpse of the extraordinary cinematography when her face is filled with shadows of the dancing flames in front of her – especially the shadow work throughout the entire picture is worth more than a mention – it is absolutely amazing. In the aftermath of this tragedy Veronika ends up staying with the family of Boris, where Mark is asked to support her and take good care of her. We end up with the two of them alone in the apartment, with Mark playing the piano and Veronika sobbing away in the corner, only to have the alarms go off again. With her family dead and still no sound from Boris, not much matter at the moment. Mark, as the coward he is, obviously wants to leave as fast as possible, but Veronika refuses to move. Mark gets frustrated and inside a mixed mind of emotions he sits down to play the piano once again. What follows may be the best scene of the entire movie, though admittedly in the midst of equally impressive scenes.
What follows here is shot after shot after shot of framable compositions, which collides with an extraordinary sound design to complete the experience. And as the piano-playing gets more and more aggressive the loud bombings follow the same pattern and find its way to the apartment. The intensity of the bombs goes hand in hand with the intensity of emotions rising in the midst of war; things break, gets torn apart, ruined, crushed and ultimately hit you like a slap in the face. The face-off between Mark and Veronika is intense and horrifying as they almost turn into beast and prey, enemy and escapist, as Mark rises above Veronika, inside the shadows, with a look of truly terrifying proportions. He notices the chance to cunningly caress her, though he does so in a forceful and almost frightful manner. Veronika pushes herself away as the dance of dominance in the midst of disasters begins. Set to intense music that sends the mind straight towards something along the lines of a dramatic musical ballet, director Mikhail Kalatazov creates his own ballet of cinematic beauty, creating a conflict inside the conflict. This scene is so mesmerizing and masterfully shot that all the senses are stimulated all at once and every emotion comes clashing as the climax presents itself; all the music stops, Veronika drops to the floor, and Mark picks her up and carries her through the room. We then shift from steps on sharp broken glass to broken men at the battlefield in the soft soggy mud and suddenly the crystal clear contrast is a barrier thicker than ever and yet so close to home.
What comes after is an additional anti-dramatic decision by the director, where the one main character, Boris, is killed off on the battlefield – and not in a necessarily heroic and masculine manner, though it does happen because of him being kind of a hero. He is send out towards the enemy lines and in an attempt to rescue the soldier he just had an argument with, he is shot dead at a place where he believed to be more safe. The shot happens suddenly and out of nowhere and what follows is a dreamy montage of sorts, which is both beautiful and haunting at the same time, where Boris sees his life flash before his eyes. It is a collection of core memories from the past, current events from the present and even things from the future. This compilation of things that was, is, and may become, is all incredibly intervened inside a technically brilliant cross-cutting montage of images, which creatively combines the spinning sense of lying dead on the ground with the sense of feeling alive in the past – the mix of the spinning stairs and the spinning trees is yet another beautiful contrast to add to the collection. In a way the story peaks right about here, at least for me, since what follows becomes a little too hollow and not harrowing enough. I get the importance of the time spend further East, away from the German offensive, but it tends to become a little slow, a little shallow and slightly messy, confused and unbalanced. This middle piece was pretty much the only slightly negative thing I had to say about the movie, but it might also change for the positive with a second visit.
Of course there is memorable points even to the minor pitfalls; Mark finally gets exposed to who he really is and what he has done, presenting him as someone, who not only let his country down but his whole family. We also finally get a parallel to the piece of paper in the basket of the toy squirrel. And most importantly, the father of Boris utters a very important speech, which ends up being uplifting for some and unsettling for others, the latter being Veronika, who is directly impacted by the words in the speech and decides to run away and possibly end her life. Dare I say it, yet another fantastic scene follows, where the emotions of Veronika are at their peak and ready to pop, which is shown through the shaky and distracting camera work as she runs away. She also runs right by a fence, which is a brilliant and very original shot, where the fence almost makes the entire experience feel like a collection of still images presented at high speed, resulting in what is almost a “stop motion effect” that feels fragmented and frantic… exactly like her emotions. She ends up on a bridge, over a train track, but instead of jumping and taking her own life she ends up saving someone else’s – a little boy, coincidently named Boris.
The little boy awards her with a little life and reason for a short period of time and things start to look better, at least until she is told about the fatal outcome for her one true love. Veronika refuses to believe anything until she has heard the news from one of Boris’ best friends, Stephan. Finally, the homecoming comes along with a clear contrast to the ceremony at the beginning of the film. We are reminded of the beautiful and haunting tracking shot at the beginning with the main character, who is searching to see her loved one for one last goodbye, but never does. Finally, the war comes to an end, the soldiers come home, but Boris is nowhere in sight. She searchers for him once again, in the hope of them greeting each other like it was the first time they met, but instead the greeting becomes a goodbye – a goodbye she never really gets to say. Watching Veronika running through people crying of joy and her crying of sadness is something that sticks with you, especially as the scene continues, once Stephan stands tall to talk about the terrors of war in more than one meaning.
When Veronika gives us a small glimpse of both realization and revelation and starts to walk around the crowd, handing out flowers for the falling men, was a feeling more uplifting and bittersweet than any other. It was hopeful, thoughtful and honest. And as she looks up to the sky – a place once occupied by bombing planes – now holds cranes like ships, flying high in the sky. ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ is a cold, cold war concept of concentrated emotions that can and will eventually create beautiful cinema even when made at the height of the Cold War. This movie is an A-bomb in more than one sense of the word and I would probably award it with a grade-A if I could grasp it all on one watch. This entire film is close to a masterpiece, going all the way from subtle to sharp social and political comments and clear cut contrasts, resulting in pure cinema painted on canvases. This is not just art in cinema but art in general – and Mikhail Kalatozov is the General himself...
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