Winner of both the Palme d’Or and the Best Actress Award (for Tatiana Samojlova) at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for two BAFTA Awards (Best Film and Best Foreign Actress) in 1959, Mikheil Kalatozishvili’s THE CRANES ARE FLYING is a masterpiece of visual storytelling. One of the first post-war Soviet films to receive anykind of exposure outside the USSR, the film was partly responsible for reintroducingSoviet cinema to the rest of the world.
An affecting love story set during World War II, THE CRANES ARE FLYING concerns Boris (Alexei Batalov) and Veronica (Tatiana Samojlova), two young lovers whose idyllic existence is threatened when Boris volunteers to serve in the Russian army in the fight against the invading Germans. Circumstances conspire against the pair when, theday before Veronica’s birthday, Boris receives his orders to report for duty. Bad timing means the tragic lovers are forced apart without having time to share their farewells and Veronica fails to discover a note Boris has left for her. As Boris faces the horror of war on the frontline, so Veronica must fight a different, but equally distressing battle on the homefront, first when she loses her parents in a bombing raid, and secondly when she has todeal with the unwelcome advances of Boris’ draft-dodging cousin.
Tender, tragic and unusually free of the kind of propaganda common in Russian films ofthe era, THE CRANES ARE FLYING is a captivating achievement, full of striking imagery and dazzling cinematography and mobile camerawork, which proved to be years ahead of its time.
THE CRANES ARE FLYING (cert. PG) will be released on DVD (£19.99) by Nouveaux Pictures on 29th January 2007. Special Features include interview with actor Alexei Batalov, featurette on actress Tatiana Samoilava, Chronicle, photo gallery, filmographies, English 5.1 (dubbed), Russian mono with English subtitles, Russian 5.1 with English subtitles and chapter selection.
