1957 ‘Летят журавли’ Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris' family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions.
Tatyana Samoylova Aleksey Batalov Vasili Merkuryev Aleksandr Shvorin Svetlana Kharitonova Konstantin Kadochnikov Valentin Zubkov Antonina Bogdanova Boris Kokovkin Ekaterina Kupriyanova Valentina Ananina Valentina Vladimirova Olga Dzisko Leonid Knyazev Georgiy Kulikov Daniil Netrebin Aleksandr Popov Irina Preis Nikolay Smorchkov Galina Stepanova Klarina Frolova-Vorontsova Georgiy Shamshurin Leonid Alekseyev Valentina Berezutskaya Maya Bulgakova Lidiya Vinogradova Lidiya Genel-Ablova Aleksandr Degtyar Anatoliy Dudorov Show All…
Sensô to teisô, Pasaron las grullas, Otan pernoun oi geranoi, Als de ooievaars voorbijtrekken, Летять журавлі, Durnalar uçur, Zboară cocorii, Die Kraniche ziehen, Kured lendavad, Letijo žerjavi, 戦争と貞操, Letyat zhuravli, Cuando pasan las cigüeñas, Vuelan las grullas, Quando Passam as Cegonhas, Quando Voam as Cegonhas, Quand passent les cigognes, Quando volano le cicogne, 학이 난다, Летят жерави, Jeřábi táhnou, Tranerne flyver forbi, Wenn die Kraniche ziehen, Όταν Πετούν οι Γερανοί, جرثقیل ها پرواز می کنند, Kurjet lentävät, Szállnak a darvak, Als de kraanvogels overvliegen, Lecą żurawie, Cocorii zboară, Žeriavy tiahnu, Och tranorna flyga, Leylekler Uçarken, 雁南飞
USSR
Brazil14
France
FinlandK-12
PortugalM/14
NetherlandsAL
UKPG
Brazil
Finland
France
Netherlands
Portugal
UK
USSR
I hate this movie. It's going directly into my top 100.
I hate that it makes my heart hurt so much and how the camera work makes me dizzy and nauseous at the horrors of war.
I hate that the sharpness of some of the images stings my eyes, especially those of her eyes and in hearing the word Nyet, over and over to no avail.
I hate the condemnation and perpetual self hatred and to what depths and lengths they'll carry the burden of them.
I hate that Anna never gets a chance to answer the question, "What is the meaning of life?" Because, I really needed to know. Instead, I'm left fumbling right along with the movie, wondering.
I hate how unsettled I feel and how adrift...
I love that I hate it, for it's cinema at its finest and most confronting.
Fucking hell, is every Russian just born with an incredible, unique ability to create the most stunning imagery??
If you've watched a more beautiful B&W film than this then consider yourself very lucky. The cinematography in The Cranes Are Flying is the heart and soul of the movie but it'd also be unfair to not acknowledge the timeless and moving love story it captures along with Tatiana Samoilova great performance. This really should be on the syllabus of all film classes.
The Cranes are Flying is a Russian movie about a woman whose fiancée is sent off to war, and drama ensues when she begins to reluctantly date his brother.
I found it abundantly clear when I was making my favorite movie list that I'm a romantic. I'm a sucker for films in which characters are motivated by true love across time and space. This film is no different, yet I felt like Kalatozov's vision and his Soviet background gave this film a level of enlightenment through all the darkness and pain.
The camerawork is spectacular, and is the main reason this film remains so singular and unique today. The camera moves sometimes erratically at times, but never unintentionally and always…
***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***
Flawless war masterpiece, mostly captivating and heartbreaking, but honest drama about a doomed romance set in war times. Kalatozov uses powerful ideals of moral, a wonderful photography and ambitious editing techniques to create unforgettable sequences, from the car accident to the brilliant ending, a scene that definitely should be applauded.
100/100
Whenever I’m feeling off, I always have this tendency to look up into the sky; it doesn’t matter whether it’s day or night—the sight of clouds or stars never failed in making me relaxed. Today, before watching this film, I went outside, looked up, and saw a flock of birds flying past our residence. It’s a sheer coincidence, considering that I was planning to give this film a rewatch after buying apples to eat while watching. At that moment, a sudden realization hit me—maybe this feeling of relief and seeing something novel is exactly what the audience felt after watching this film.
The Cranes are Flying debuted years after Stalin died and premiered at a time where the Thaw, or…
The lonely cold of war. The Cranes are Flying is an essential piece of Soviet cinema, a film which allowed an entire nation to weep for their dead. Made over a decade after the war ended, The Cranes are Flying is a melodrama calibrated not to propagandistic patriotism but to a specific feeling of loss felt by a nation that had lost so many. Young love everlasting, millions of lovers will never age as their bodies are buried under the muds of Eastern Europe. The Cranes are Flying presents war reaching the streets of Russian cities, with buildings burning and gunfire rattling. Our lead is a woman constantly lost within crowds, as her life becomes spiritually numb. There is nothing…
Sinegang 2nd Weekly Pick Cycle: Pick #1
By Denise
The Cranes are Flying is a powerful story of the effect of war, and I find myself reeling in the midst of the humanity we find in Veronika and Boris. From the brilliant direction to the stirring performance of the late Tatiana Samoilova (whom the camera seems to love so much), this film was able to contrast between the horrors and the heroism that occurred during its setting, all while depicting the travails of a young, adoring woman amidst it all. Do not be fooled; the camera is the true star of the movie and Sergey Urusevsky proves that he is indeed a cinematic genius.
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The Russian World War II film The Cranes are Flying, by director Mikhail Kalatozov, is so potent that it might piss you off at how weak and tepid American movies were during that period after you’ve made this discovery. It begins as a blissful romance between young lovers Boris (Aleksey Batalov) and Veronika (Tatiana Samoilova, an extraordinary and timeless performance), but when the German blitzkrieg begins Boris is prompted to volunteer to fight, leaving Veronika behind to care for her aging parents. The air raids are, for a 1957 film, actually scary and shattering.
Cine-geeks will be kindled over the extraordinary tracking shots and the running hand-held shots that would later be imitated in crucial David Fincher films.
But this…
This film is defined by two sublime performances that work in concert with each other. One is Tatyana Samoylova’s Veronika, the heart of the film whose expressive face speaks with more clarity than any line of dialogue. The second performer is the camera, the expressive and kinetic star of the film that elevates a war time drama into an expressionistic explosion of cinematic invention.
Every composition here is sublime, the black and white photography contains a beautiful range of shades - elevated to utter beauty through striking lighting. The set design only adds to this, heightened through Dutch angles and stylistic flourishes to give the everyday the appearance of something much more melodramatic, and poetic (even if brutally so).
In…
Criterion Collection Spine #146
(Foreign language film - Russian)
A stunningly beautiful yet tragic story of love being crushed by war.
"We share the grief of those who cannot meet their loved ones today, and we will do everything to ensure that sweethearts are never again parted by war, that mothers need never again fear for their children's lives, that fathers need never again choke back hidden tears."
The masterful craftsmanship of Russian cinema continues to amaze me. I thought the cinematography in Alfonso Cuarón's films was incredible, but now I have seen the breathtaking visual camera magic of Director Mikhail Kalatozo. It says a lot that the camera work alone in The Cranes Are Flying made me want to…
The Soviet Union made some of the best anti-war movies in cinema history, which is both admirable and ironic in hindsight. Much like the equally brilliant The Ascent, The Cranes Are Flying also fished for a heartbreaking story of the WWII atrocity, and offered groundbreaking visual treats owing to director Mikhail Kalatozov's visionary style.
The boy goes to war, and the girl is left heartbroken. This is a tale as old as time, but Kalatozov sold it with his astonishing variety of ingenious shots, from intense close-ups to perfect maneuvers of light and shadow. On top of the chilly, melancholic cinematography, a highly restrained Tatiana Samoilova offered one of the most heartfelt, devastating acting showcases in cinema history, playing a…
