Must-watchWorld War II · Film · 1957
The Cranes Are Flying
Letyat zhuravli
Veronika and Boris watch the cranes fly over Moscow at dawn on the day the war begins; he volunteers for the front, and she is left to face bombs, loneliness and a choice she will regret.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 2 places.
Stop 1: Moscow
Key location
Hours after a dawn walk by the river, Boris enlists; Veronika misses his departure and later loses her parents in an air raid.
Stop 2: Belorussky Rail Terminal, Moscow
With flowers in her arms, Veronika searches the crowd for a face among the soldiers coming home from the war.
What really happened
Released during Khrushchev's Thaw, Mikhail Kalatozov's film broke with the heroic Stalin-era war movie by centring on a woman's grief and guilt. Its home-front setting is real: Germany invaded on 22 June 1941, Moscow was bombed from late July, and in October 1941 much of the population, industry and government was evacuated east as the Wehrmacht approached.
Hundreds of thousands of Muscovites volunteered for the people's militia and the Red Army in the first weeks; many of those units were destroyed in the autumn battles around Vyazma. Sergey Urusevsky's hand-held camera and the final scene of soldiers returning to Moscow in May 1945 became landmarks of world cinema.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Letyat zhuravli
- Directed by
- Mikhail Kalatozov
- Countries
- Russia
- Languages
- Russian
- Released
- 1957
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Eastern Front
- Themes
- Home front
- Romance
