The Cranes Are Flying

"What filmmaking should be." ▲ ♪


It's films like this one that make this fool's errand of mine worth while. I mean, no one's paying me to watch two and three films a night. I do it for the sake of this unreachable goal of mine. It's like a pig climbing up a coal chute, me attempting to view a collection of films that gets bigger every day. But then there are nights when I sit down, put in another Russian film, ready to hit the fast-forward button and instead, I'm paralyzed by the beauty on the screen. Every frame, every shot, every scene. This is what filmmaking is... or should be. Mikhail Kalatozov tells a heartbreaking and yet beautiful story set during WWII.

Favorite Moments: Beginning, middle, end.