Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.
My reaction to a film like Letyat Zhuravli (The Cranes are Flying) is initially an unfair one, I freely admit. I’ve made the observation in the past that of all the possible topics of films, World War II might well be the most common on The List, and possibly the most common in general. There’s a shit-ton of WWII to get through, and we see the war through almost every possible lens. This film gives us the lens of the Russian homefront, a sort of Soviet Mrs. Miniver, if you will. Like any homefront film, it shows us all the terrors of the war without really showing us much of the war itself, but this time, it comes from the point of view of those struggling to survive for the benefit of Mother Russia.
We start before the war begins, with the burgeoning romance between Boris (Aleksy Batalov) and Veronika (Tatyana Samoylova). They’re a cute couple and all indications are that they will be married. But of course the war comes, and rather than waiting to be drafted into the People’s Army, Boris enlists with his friend Stepan (Valentin Zubkov). Veronika tries to see Boris off to the front, but is prevented by the massive crowd, and so off he goes without a goodbye from his sweetheart.
