Beautiful, moving film.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

What a striking picture, especially coming from the Soviet Union in 1957. Some of the shots resemble, oh, I don't know, nouvelle vague. The director was Mikhail Kalatozov. He makes splendid use of light values and composition. The shadows are stark black, and if there are four people involved in a confrontation the figures may be arranged at three different levels on a staircase. The plot is pointed towards patriotism on everyone's part. There is nothing resembling propaganda in this love triangle, any more than there was in the abominable "Pearl Harbor." It's a celebration of the ability of most ordinary people to endure hardship. And that hardship was very real in Russia, from the beginning with the German invasion to the ultimate triumph. First, the Russians had about 8 million deaths in the military, and about 13 million civilians lost their lives. For comparison the total American deaths, both military and civilian, were about 420,000. Moreover, as the Nazi threat to the industrial centers of cities like Moscow and Stalingrad increased, the Soviets packed up both workers and plants and move them across the Ural Mountains. Imagine, say, St. Louis being physically move west of the Rockies.But this is the story basically of a woman, Veronica, whose lover is marched off to war, whose family is killed in an air raid, who moves in with the family of her fiancé, who is raped by her fiancé's brother, who takes up with her rapist, who is sufficiently shamed by her betrayal of her lover at the front that she is barely stopped from committing suicide. Her fiancé is reported to have been wounded and died at the front, but no one has actually seen him buried. Is he still alive somewhere? Evidently not, because Veronica brings an armload of flowers to the train bringing the soldiers home, hoping to find him in the milling crowd. But he's not there. Tearfully she begins distributing flowers, bit by bit, to the noisy celebrants at the station -- bearded old men, young men in uniform, babies, grief-stricken babushkas, little boys, everyone. Well -- what else can she do but recognize that the victory in the Great Patriotic War dwarfs her personal tragedy. "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Veronika is a decent actress. The casting is especially precise because neither she nor her boyfriend Boris are extraordinarily beautiful. They're agreeable to look at, but rather ordinary. Veronika is not Olga Kurilenko, and Boris is no, well, whatever the male equivalent of Olga Kurilenko might be. There are no speeches about Mother Russia. Stalin's name is never mentioned. He was a complete bastard before and during the war and killed more Russians than the Nazis did. There IS one victory speech at the end. A returning soldier shouts to the crowd that we must never let war happen again and we must pursue peace. The Germans are called "brutes," once, but that's all. The enemy is war itself. The sentiment must be justified because we all seem to salute it as we pass it on the way to the next war.I feel I have to expatiate a bit on the direction and camera work because probably most people watching the movie won't recognize how innovative two Soviet movies were at the time, how much impact they had on the West. In the companion piece, "Ballad of a Soldier," for instance, there is a scene is which a Russian soldier is running towards the elevated camera, sprinting like hell to avoid a German tank that's pursuing him.The camera is held still as the soldier rushes under and past it, disappearing off the screen. When the tank races past the same location, the camera follows the tank by leaning so far forward that the image on the film -- tank chasing man -- is upside down. That's nothing now, of course, when cameras twirl around and do pirouettes, but in 1957 that technique was NEW.

The Cranes are Flying is a war drama that portrays the effects of World War II in Russia during that time period. The movie puts an interesting light on how war affected not only the soldiers fighting, but those left behind. The way in which the movie is shot is excellent: the use of hand-held camera makes the movie more realistic. It literally follows the characters through the movie. The expert use of symbolism in this film also contributes to the overall message. One of the most important symbols used in this film is rotation: the rotation in the film implies a sort of image in how things spiral down in life. The film also does a good job of developing characters. The protagonist of the film, Veronika, is representative of the nation as a whole. She represents the guilt brought on by being the survivor in war as well as the hope associated with new beginnings. The entirety of the film is mostly heartbreaking; however, the message at the end of the film is a hopeful one. The Cranes are Flying gives light to the harsh realities of war and its effects on a nation. Overall, the movie is very well done.

Most definitely one of the best works of cinematography I have seen. Sergei Urusevsky is truly a cinematic genius. Many of the scenes in this film are shot with a hand-held camera, and the shots are incredible. Urusevsky conveyed the feelings and emotions of the characters through the camera, which is difficult for a lot of filmmakers to do. Not only is this a great film in terms of technique, but it is also a very beautiful story as well. The actors are great, the story is great, and just the film itself is great. I highly recommend this film to anyone; whether you are wanting to analyze it or just enjoy it. It is very beautiful and moving film; as well as a piece of cinematic art.

I often find that Russian cinema in general is very often interesting at the least, particularly because of their cinematography, which always elevates the technical standards from a film. Under this aspect, it can be said that Russian cinema has not decreased in quality since the early days of Vertov and Eisenstein.The cinematography here is brilliant. We witness beautifully co-ordinated shots like the one in the staircase, as Boris runs up to Veronica in the early stages of the film, to ask her when their next encounter will be. This is a scene that shows the beauty of Russian youth during the pre-war days, the immaculate image of hope. This scene itself actually show casts another great aspect of the film, which is the editing, when it is re-used later on when Boris gets shot.On that note, I must also add that that is a great turning point. Boris gets shot. We always suspect it will happen, from early on in fact, when we see that Mark has feelings for Veronika. However, we don't want it to happen, and in the end, although we have witnessed him dying, saw him breathless on the ground after a great montage as I mentioned before which inter-cuts with images of the wedding with Veronika that he will never had, and with the beautiful shot from the early stages of the film when he ran up to her on the staircase.It is, however, far from being a flawless movie. It almost collapses under the emotional weight that it carries, and becomes an obnoxious film that is supposed to lecture us on our behaviors towards the people at war. Its views are, expectedly very leftist. And these views become cliché from the moment we see Mark with Veronika, which is early on in the film. Mark is the coward, because he doesn't want to go to war. Veronika never falls for him, and in the eyes of Kalatozov, it is in fact because he is a coward. And it doesn't matter that he is a good person. We never see him lay a hand on Veronika and at some stage he hopelessly asks her what he can do to make her happy. She replies 'Just disappear'. That is a harsh reply, and we can't help sympathize with Mark for trying to make her happy.WATCH FOR THE MOMENT - When Boris is shot. I mentioned above why.