Segredos de Guerra

Firebird (2021) was co-written and directed by Peeter Rebane. This isn't a review of Stravinsky's Firebird. It a movie set in Estonia in 1977, when that country was part of the Soviet Union.

I don't know why the movie has an Estonian director, a star from the UK (Tom Prior), from Ukraine (Oleg Zagorodnii) and from Russia (Diana Pozharskaya). Everyone speaks in English. Director Rebane is bilingual, but what about Zagorodnii and Pozharskaya? They may be bilingual as well. Usually, you'll notice dubbing, but I didn't detect it in this case.

Prior plays Sergey, a young conscript who wants to become an actor when his conscription ends. Zagorodnii is Roman, a tough fighter pilot. ("The Firebird.") Pozharskaya plays Luisa, who works as the colonel's secretary. (She wears a uniform, but I can't tell if she's actually in the air force.)

I called this a very unusual love triangle, because both men are attracted to each other, and Luisa is attracted to them both. The plot moves forward from there.

We saw this film virtually from the great ImageOut Rochester LGBT Film Festival. It has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.7. I agreed, and rated it 8.

P. S. The Firebird ballet does enter the movie. The men go to see a performance of the ballet in Moscow.

If you've seen Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain you won't feel very compelled to see this, but you should. The main premise is quite similar: two lovers in an extremely homophobic environment form a bubble where their love can thrive through stealing time from their own ordinary obligtions to keep their love alive. The context is slightly different, since we're dealing with a Cold-War airforce in Russia where homosexuality is punishable by prison. The two male leads are conving and attractive, with erotic scenes on the right side of tasteful. As usual, epilogues in these sorts of stories tend to be predictable, but as with everything else, it's the road that matters, not the goal. Also, the fact that it's based on a true story lends it some more weight to keep it from turning into an amalgam of Titanic and Brokeback Mountain.

This is the first film from Estonia I watched. Films are always a nice way to experience the countries, cultures and stories otherwise I wouldn't have tried.

It's a sleek and smooth film. Good production value, nice scenes, adequate actors... But it feels a bit too conventional, bit cliche, bit too predictable. The military base forever under a cold blue cast, rain in the emergency landing scene, the blacksea beach forever bleached under warm summer tone, the last theatre scene that looks like a cover photo of a fashion magazine with too much glamour filter... Music of Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky to heighten the emotions... And lines from Shakespeare, of course.

There's nothing wrong for a film to be conventional. It's a business after all, and however wonderful a story, it has to sell first for it to be heard by the public. But I wished at times, that the production rather have cut some of those cliches, and really, I mean really went down to the depth of the emotions of the characters. Then the tragic love story would have been much more heartfelt and real.

Definitely well made and worth a watch... but not a masterpiece.

PS. I must question the choice of English language for the film. Yes, I see it's a UK-Estonian joint venture, yes, I see the main actor is English, and yes it may sell easier internationally... But having actors speaking in 'funny accent' is certainly one aspect that takes away the sense of reality from the the drama, especially because in most English speaking countries, foreign accent invariably invokes a negative connotation. I would have rather liked it in full Estonian or English with no particular accent.

An outstanding experience in cinema. Firebird is a piece of history from USSR Cold War worth its stunning images in gold!. This movie is so filled with passion and filled with amazing performances you can't help but to watch in aw. Highly recommended! I saw this at Outfest and I must say of all the films I saw, this one was truly my personal favorite and the best picture I saw. When it is out, do not hesitate to seek it out!

I'm an Eastern European queer born in Socialist times, so the story isn't exactly new to me. Almost all of us have usually far grimmer tales to tell, like asking a guy for a light in Opera Park and suddenly finding oneself in a basement pressed for names of fellow queers by a phone book slammed on the fingers. So I'm a bit put off by how tame this all is, a little bit of menace amidst extremely careless behavior - we were way more ingenious back then.

But it's wonderfully photographed for sure and Prior and Zagorodny are insanely hot - their love scenes look like they were choreographed by Matthew Bourne. To top it off, Zagorodny bears a remarkable resemblance to Tom Cruise, which is definitely not coincidental. So this is the film for all the gays fantasizing after watching Top Gun - prior to this one the gayest air force movie ever, even though they hid the subtext well. And it's perhaps an elegant jab at an actor who does action movies at 60 but still hasn't had his Jodie Foster moment.