The Cranes Are Flying was directed by Mikhail Kalatozov in collaboration with his cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky in 1957. The two men worked on several films together including Soy Cuba in 1964. Together their craftsmanship is simply astounding. From the first frame of The Cranes Are Flying to the last you can’t help but stare in amazement at what you are seeing. The film is so visually stunning and inventive it’s hard to convey in words. I can’t imagine how long a movie like this must have taken to make. The camera movement, the compositions the blocking must have taken hours or even days to set up.
