When I think of spectacular visual set pieces found in the masterpieces of cinema, I usually think in terms of the great auteurs of cinema such as Wells, Hitchcock, and Kubrick, to name a few. It would never cross my mind to include the Soviet Georgian director Mikhai Kalatozov or his collaborating cinematographer, Sergey Urusevsky in my discussions. However, you will not find many films with more spectacular scenes and set pieces then, “The Cranes are Flying”, which they produced in 1957. Kalatozov sold the idea of the film to the iron curtain regime through its powerful spirit lifting ending. Other than that ending, the rest of this movie is far from uplifting. The story resides around the suffering of the Moscow home front during the 2nd World War, when mother Russia suffered enormous casualties and those left waiting became targets of unprotected bombardments. The center of the story belongs to a young couple in love. Boris Ivanovich (Aleksey Batalov), is a factory worker studying to be a doctor and living with his Doctor Father, Mother, Grand-mother and musically talented cousin. He is in love with Veronika (Tatiana Samoilova who brings to her part one of those transcending performances that will live in the viewers mind long after the closing credits). She lives with her loving parent. This young couple has a soulful love that is the center of the film. War breaks out and Boris volunteers to get drafted, enlisting in the infantry. His suffering on the battlefield is shown briefly as the film emphasizes the home and life he left behind. Tragedy, opportunism, guilt and sacrifice follow and explode in one of the saddest and tearful endings that I have ever seen. Then in order to appease the ruling communist party, the film veers into a message of togetherness and hope. In between we are treated to so many powerful scenes including one of the greatest death scenes I have ever seen. In it, the person who is killed falls down facing the sky and through this view we see his recent life swiftly fly in the sky before dissolving into nothing. There are also many wide sweeping shots that are expertly cut combining scope with close ups that serve to portray feelings and emotions matched expertly to the action. There is a lot of homage to Einsenstein’s Battleship Potemkin here. Take the scene where Veronika is held up on her way to seeing Boris off at the draft yard. There are literally thousands of people pressing against the gate of the school yard that is used to round up the enlisted and Boris keeps looking to find Veronika who arrives late. She finally arrives storming through the crowds searching and searching for her love. The energetic camera work while keeping the line of site between Boris and Veronika as its focal point shows us flashes of some of the other members of the large crowd. Lovers kissing, mothers giving what may be last embraces to their sons. Fathers keeping a stiff upper lip while showing great worry as their sons go to war. Through all this we are kept tense in wonder if Boris and Veronika will see each other before it is too late. It is a dazzling and brilliant set piece but it is not the only one. This film is chock full of them. At one point deep and utter guilt forces Veronika to contemplate suicide and the camera zooms into her eyes and feelings as it follows her in flight. We are running together with her as the camera reverts constantly to her point of view once she is on the verge of committing the act and before fate of one less fortunate serves to save her at the last second. The scene is breathtaking. The movie itself has served as an inspiration to many later films such as Dr. Zhivago and Reds with those films deep and detailed crowd scenes. From the controlling depths of cold war Russia there emerged a masterpiece of cinema. “The Cranes are Flying”, is that film.
Skip to content
1001 Movies before you die 