History Film / TheCranesAreFlying

* ArcWords: "Cranes are flying" and variations of it.

* DiesWideOpen: Poor Boris, dying in some random muddy forest.

* DivingSave: How Veronika saves the little kid from the onrushing truck.

* IWillWaitForYou: Veronika does this for Boris. [[TearJerker In vain]].
* KilledMidSentence: Boris.

You can watch ''The Cranes Are Flying'' [[https://russianfilmhub.com/movies/the-cranes-are-flying-1957/ here]].

''The Cranes Are Flyiing'' (Letyat zhuravli) is a 1957 film from the Soviet Union, directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, starring Tatyana Samojlova and Alexsey Batalov.

You can watch ''The Cranes Are Flyiing'' [[https://russianfilmhub.com/movies/the-cranes-are-flying-1957/ here]].

* {{Bookends}}: [[TitleDrop The cranes are flying]] over Moscow in the first shot and the last, at the beginning of the war and after the end.

* RecurringCameraShot: the opening romantic scene at the bridge with the lead couple Boris and Veronika gets repeated shot by shot later in the movie. This time with Veronika and Boris' cousin who lusts after her.

''The Cranes Are Flyiing'' (Letyat zhuravli) is a 1957 film from the Soviet Union, directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, starring Tatyana Samojlova and Alexsey Batalov. It is June 1941, and Veronika and Boris (Samojlova and Batalov) are young people in Moscow who are deeply in love and engaged to be married. Unfortunately, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Operation Barbarossa]] interrupts their happiness, as Boris volunteers to fight and leaves Veronika behind. Tragedy strikes when a German bombing raid kills Veronika's parents, leading her to move in with Boris's family: Boris's father Fyodor, Boris's mother, his sister Irina, and his cousin Mark. Mark is a composer who has somehow avoided being called up to serve in the Red Army, supposedly because he is so talented. Mark is infatuated with Veronika and continues to force his attentions on her, while she holds him at arm's length and waits for Boris, who is fighting on the front lines.

* RapeAsDrama: A single shot of Veronika's face with her eyes going wide with fear is used to suggest that Mark raped her during the air raid.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/CameBackStrong.jpg]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/142de0be417c3164693a21234be39a37.jpg]]

* FatalFamilyPhoto: Boris's snapshot of Veronika, which comes out just before his fatal mission--although he didn't mean to show it, it fell out when he was taking his papers out of his greatcoat.

* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: The central theme of the movie is how soldiers and their lovers deal with the separation. Veronika is a {{Determinator}} who [[IWillWaitForYou waits out for Boris]] over all those years, never gives up hope for him to return.

* ArcWords: "Cranes are flying" and variations of that line.
* BittersweetEnding: The war is over and Veronika finally accepts Boris' death and moves on with her life.

* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: The soldier with the CaptivityHarmonica get injured during his ArmyScout mission with Boris and tells the latter to go on without him. Boris [[NoOneGetsLeftBehind refuses and carries him his partner on his shoulders]].

* MissedHimByThatMuch: Boris and Veronika try to find each other in the crowd when the troops take off from the city. And although it looks they would bump into another at some point, [[StarCrossedLovers they fail to]].

* VoiceoverLetter: When Veronika starts reading the letter found in the toy squirrel, the voice switches over to be of Boris.

!!Tropes in this film:
* AloneInACrowd: Convinced that Boris is alive, Veronika goes to meet the trains carrying back Red Army veterans. Boris's friend Stepan tells her that she is dead. Veronika staggers through the joyous crowd weeping, giving her flowers to random strangers. This trope is averted at the end, however, when Fyodor shows up and puts his arm around her.
* BookEnds: [[TitleDrop The cranes are flying]] over Moscow in the first shot and the last, at the beginning of the war and after the end.

* DyingDream: After he's shot, a dying Boris has a vision of coming home in triumph and marrying Veronika.

* POVCam: The trees spin around Boris as he staggers and falls after being shot.

* WarIsHell: The terrible toll that World War II took on the Russian people, as shown through the eyes of one young woman in Moscow.

* {{Undercrank}}: The camera speeds up as a distraught Veronika runs out of the hospital and to a possible suicide at the train tracks.

* AloneInTheCrowd: Convinced that Boris is alive, Veronika goes to meet the trains carrying back Red Army veterans. Boris's friend Stepan tells her that she is dead. Veronika staggers through the joyous crowd weeping, giving her flowers to random strangers. This trope is averted at the end, however, when Fyodor shows up and puts his arm around her.

''The Cranes Are Flying'', released only four years after the death of UsefulNotes/JosephStalin ushered in a period of liberalization in the Soviet Union, is one of the first Russian films to treat the war as a tragedy. Its mournful tone strikes a dramatic contrast not only with previous Russian films about the war, but also with the generally triumphant films made in the west, Britain and the United States having sufferred far less than the Soviets did. ''The Cranes Are Flying'' is the only Russian-language film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.