Crosswind - La croisée des vents

Had to watch at school. Noob movie make me sleep.

Sad

'Risttuules' is a film from Estonia, a Baltic country uncomfortably located in Eastern Europe. Close to Russia.

In 1918 Estonia got independent; in 1940 the country was occupied by Stalin, in 1941 by Hitler, and in 1944 again by Stalin. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Estonia regained its independence.

This film symbolizes the deportation of more than 500.000 Estonians in June 1941 by Stalin. This happened eight days before Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. It tells the story of a broken-up family, based on genuine letters from the wife to her far-away husband. They would never be re-united.

'Risttuules' is a typical East European film: a fairly slow pace, allowing everyone to take its tragic story in to the full. But what really shines out here, is this film's picturing: very beautiful, and done in a great East European style.

To appreciate this film to the full, I think it necessary to have a knowledge of the complicated 20th-century history of Eastern Europe. And about the mentality & style of its peoples as well. Without these ingredients, in my opinion you will miss too much.

...not only beautiful. or painful. or moving. but useful. for the artistic virtues, off course. but, more important, as remember. not only about the Baltic tragedy. but for each people moved far by his homeland under Soviet regime. Tatars, Bukovinians, Polish, Basarabians. the splendid grace of image. the fine performance. the sound of words. and wise use of letters. a sort of magic. in fact, just key. for define the Eastern recent past .

75 years ago, in the early hours of June 14, 1941, more than 40,000 people were deported from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. That was the beginning of mass banishments to Siberia and other remote regions of the USSR promoted by the Soviet authorities. Under secret orders of Stalin, this operation was aimed to remove dissidents of the socialist regime from their home countries to quell any opposition, and promote ethnic cleansing of the region. Among these thousands of deportees was Erna Tamm (Laura Peterson) and his family (daughter and husband). The movie Risttuules (original title) or In the Crosswind (in English) was inspired by the letters of Erna written from Siberia to her husband, Heldur (Tarmo Song), from whom she was separated by the Soviets.

In his first movie, the estonian director Martti Helde was bold in its proposal: to make an art film, in black and white, through the technique of tableaux vivants, to photographically recreate the memories described in the letters. As opposed to the traditional cinematographic narrative, the tableaux vivant makes use of static shot, in which the characters stand still as the camera slowly travels through the environment. The observed time is frozen, allowing us to focus the subtle details of each scene as well as the expressions of the actors and their body language. Everything leads us to believe that we are facing a common photographic representation, which is only denied by the wind moving some objects, such as clothing, branches and leaves or sheets of paper. The voice-over of Laura Peterson complements the recreation of those memories describing events and the feelings of the protagonist.

Erna Tamm led a normal and happy life with her family until the war came into their lives. To portray this radical and abrupt change the time started to elapse in another dimension, being marked by the composition of tableaux vivants images. And it remained so until the end of this tragic and distressing period in the life of the protagonist, when the war came to an end. Throughout this journey we take notes of the Soviet cruelties, with the deportees being transferred in inhumane conditions inside animal wagons, suffering humiliations, being subjected to forced labor, hunger, cold, aside from the lost of relatives, friends and above all, their freedom. The soundtrack and ambient sounds help to characterize the mourning atmosphere and the melancholy of the film: almost all hope was lost.

The human tragedy experienced by the inhabitants of the Baltic countries resulted in more than 590,000 victims of the holocaust during the Soviet occupation. With the break up of the USSR, Russia, its successor, aside from maintaining a rhetoric that denies the crimes committed, even glorifies the Soviet past, its leaders, symbols and actions.

Aesthetically impeccable, made to be contemplated, as every work of art is intended to be, and with a slow pace, In the Crosswind is definitely not a film for the general public. The way it is narrated flee from the ordinary way and might not please everyone, causing strangeness and monotony in some viewers. Far beyond the story that is intended to be told, the film provides an unique sensory experience that is at the same time sad but beautiful.

Originally posted in: https://vikingbyheart.blogspot.com.br

It's a great film, but it's most definitely not for everyone.

It employes a highly unusual structure. It's told mostly through a series of live tableaus, various moments "frozen" in place, accompanied by a woman's letters read out in voiceover narration, as the camera weaves in and out of the scene, gliding past characters posed in freeze frame postures. At times, it feels more like performance art or a museum exhibition, and it easily could have been a cheap gimmick. But the filmmakers have performed a near miracle and instead of a cheap gimmick, they've produced something genuinely moving. It is haunting and heartbreaking. The film does demand some patience, but that patience is rewarded.

Here's some historical context:

In June 1940, while the Western European powers are preoccupied with the catastrophe of Dunkirk and the collapse of France, the Soviet Union swiftly and quietly occupies the three Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. A year later, beginning on June 14, 1941, Soviet forces carry out mass deportations of people from throughout the Baltic region to their new lives as prisoners/serfs/slaves in Siberia. This was just one part of Stalin's systematic dismantling of local/indigenous sources of power, authority, and legitimacy in every territory Moscow controlled. It is also a small part of the decades-long program of ethnic cleansing and "Russification" of Soviet-conquered and Soviet-occupied lands. The euphemism they used was "population transfers".