I am watching the 1957 Soviet WW2 drama “The Cranes are Flying” thanks to @la-pheacienne’s recommendation. I really love the panache it does emotional scenes with. The way it conveyed the grief of the father whose son is going to war was simply masterful.
But it also does more unrealistic melodrama well too. The main girl Veronica’s fiancé is off at war and his cousin Mark is in love with her and is repeatedly telling her that he loves her during an air raid, not a sexual assault exactly but still very threatening and creepy. She slaps him repeatedly, yelling “No”.
The scene starts at 42 minute mark:
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In another movie this could be plainly hilariously melodramatic (think of an old Turkish movie doing this scene, it would be awful and hilarious) or just mildly frightening (think of an old Hollywood version). But here it has genuine emotional intensity. Here the actors sell it (you believe Veronica would realistically slap him repeatedly, it seems fitting for her character, it doesn’t seem too stagey), the music sells it, the atmosphere sells it, the cinematography sells it. Because in both literature and cinema, what matters is not the plot, the bare bones of the action, but the way you tell it.
Film: THE CRANES ARE FLYING (d. Mikhail Kalatozov, USSR, 1957)
Forum: Chicago Film Society, NEIU Format: 35mm
Observations: Great (at least 80 folks) and unexpected turnout for a famous USSR title of the 1950s, on a Janus Film print that originated from a lab in Ukraine. The film, though at its heart a work of (soft) Soviet propaganda, comes across as of a piece with the New Wave cinema of Europe: handheld camerawork, intimate encounters with youth culture, indeterminate narrative. Lovely print, lovely show.
1957 yapımı olan film, savaşın yıkıcı etkilerini ve insan ilişkilerinin karmaşıklığını anlatan bir drama olarak tanınır. Film, Mikhail Kalatozov'un yönetmenliğinde ve Tatyana Samoylova, Aleksey Batalov ve Vasili Merkuryev gibi ünlü Sovyet oyuncuların başrollerinde yer aldığı etkileyici bir yapıttır.
Filmin hikayesi II. Dünya Savaşı döneminde geçer ve ana karakter Veronika'nın yaşamını merkezine alır. Veronika, sevgilisi Boris'in savaşa gitmesinin ardından bir dizi zorlu deneyimle karşı karşıya kalır. Film, savaşın getirdiği acıları, kayıpları ve aşkın gücünü ele alırken, insanların içsel çatışmalarını ve hayatta kalma mücadelelerini gözler önüne serer. Film, ayrıca savaşın insanlar üzerindeki etkilerini gerçekçi bir şekilde tasvir etmesiyle dikkat çeker.