Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, The Cranes Are Flying is a superbly crafted drama with impassioned performances and emotional, gravity-defying cinematography by Mikhail Kalatozov’s regular collaborator Sergei Urusevsky.
Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, until the eruption of World War II tears them apart. When idealistic Boris volunteers for service and Veronica’s home is destroyed, she moves in with Boris’ family. His draft-dodging cousin steals the despondent girl by brute force, yet she never gives up on her true love, even when he’s reported dead. Released during a short period of Soviet history known as the “thaw”, the film was heralded as a revelation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union.
