090 REVIEWt’s become a cliché of film criticism to reference the dour, intellectually
imposing work of Andrei Tarkovsky when writing about modern Russian
cinema. Shots of fetid bogs, tall grass vibrating in the wind, or houses on fire,
and the namecheck is instantly unlocked. Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes
are Flying, from 1957, predates the work of Tarkovsky, but instead harks
back to the fizzing montages and crackling energy of silent era pioneers
such as Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko. This lapel-shaking
wartime tragedy overflows with athletic tracking shots as characters dash
through crowds or dart alongside steam trains. Immaculate, pristinely
judged framing sees characters emphasised and de-emphasised through
the use of light and shadow. The film is over half-a-century old, and even
had it been made using modern, lightweight equipment, there are still
shots that baffle the brain – how were they able to do that?
Yet this is no exercise in technical bravura, but a tale of amour fou in
which the innocence of young love is tenderised by the meatgrinder of war.
The main star of the film is the enigmatic and electric Tatyana Samojlova
as flighty Veronika. She is set to marry Boris (Aleksey Batalov), but their
wedlock is postponed by his fervent desire to defend the Russian front.
Veronika pines for him from afar, but he is swiftly killed while defending a
brother in arms. This emotionally explosive icon of wartime womanhood
reserves a place in her heart for him, not realising that they will never meet
again. The film charts the harrowing twists and turns in her life, packing in
a hearty glut of incident into its relitively curt runtime. The gut-punching
climactic sequence somehow manages to offer a celebration of sacrifice
in the name of patriotism, while also framing conflict as a prolific killer of
romantic love. DAVID JENKINSThe Cranes Are Flying
Directed by 1957
MIKHAIL KALATOZOVStarring
TATYANA SAMOYLOVA
ALEKSEY BATALOV
VASILIY MERKUREVReleased 13 APRILBlu-rayI
his Blu-ray twofer set contains a pair of mid-century features from
Japan: 1971’s Gushing Prayer by Masao Adachi; and 1967’s Inflatable
Sex Doll of the Wastelands by Atsushi Yamatoya. Were you to imagine the
content of these films based on their titles alone, you’d possibly only be
half correct. Yes, they do each contain a surfeit of female nudity, and both
depict sexual situations which would be tough to describe as conventional.
Yet they are in no way erotic or comedic or kitsch or anything else you might
associate with so-called “softcore” exploitation movies from the West.
Both films harbour pointed, serious concerns about the world, and feel
that the best way to go about delivering their message is through punishing
sequences of bleak, often forced intercourse backed with clanging, atonal
noise on the soundtrack. Gushing Prayer is like the ultimate downer,
proto-goth teen movie, in which two guys and two gals, kitted out in skinny
jumpers and bell-bottoms, ward off a state of nihilistic despair by forcing
one of their party to sell her body. Because of their advanced feelings
of political alienation, they are entirely numbed to the possibilities of
pleasure and, of course, yearn for the sweet release of death. Fun times.
Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands, meanwhile, is a gangster film in
which a cocky hitman is hired by a tycoon to find his girl, who seems to
have gotten herself involved in the seamy world of snuff movies. The plot
goes haywire from there on in, with double, triple and quadruple crosses,
each interspersed with shots of uncomfortable nudity. These films are
much closer to oblique experimental wig-outs than they are regular porno
movies, and in many ways feel completely unique in their subversive form
and function. Definitely not films to bring along to liven up your mate’s
stag do. DAVID JENKINSPink Films Vol 1 & 2
T
Directed by
MASAO ADACHI
ATSUSHI YAMATOYAStarring
AKI SASAKI
MIKI WATARI
MAKIKO KIMReleased 16 MARCHBlu-ray1967, 1978