text: Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes are flying is a superb film. Winner of the golden palm at Cannes Film Festival, it has an excellent cinematography and performance by Tatyana Samojlova, the only Russian actor ever to win an award in Cannes for a performance. She plays Veronika, a teenager in love with her boyfriend, happy and without preoccupations, with plans of getting married. Her life will get upside down when World War II strikes and her boyfriend volunteers to the army. The film depicts the effect of war on a teenager love and on the people that stayed and saw their loved ones go and fight, waiting for a letter or other information. It is a portrayal of lost innocence. Samojlova does a magnificent job, and her character transformation will break your heart. The camera movement is fast with a lot of close-ups, it is a dancing camera. The first scene in the stairs is fantastic, but it isn't the only one, there is later a scene when Veronika attempts committing suicide, and another, in my opinion one of the most powerful scenes in movie history, the bombing of Veronika's house when she runs the stairs in the middle of fire, to find her apartment completely destroyed. Simply great! 10 out of 10.