Kukushka

Somewhere in the forests of Northern Europe during the closing days of World War II, Finnish support for the Nazi cause is nearing an end. Veiko (Ville Haapsalo), a Finnish soldier has lost his will to fight. Forced to wear an SS uniform by his unit, he is chained to a rock and ordered to kill as many Russians as he can before one will eventually kill him. He is known as a "cuckoo", a sniper on a suicide mission. Set in an area rarely seen: Lapland, The Cuckoo (Kukushka), directed by Aleksandre Rogozhkin, is a touching Russian comedy about the failure to communicate. Its seamless mixture of earthy humor, anti-war sentiment, and otherworldly Lapp mysticism is enhanced by strong performances, especially from Anni-Kristina Juuso, who portrays a spunky but radiant young Reindeer farmer who has not seen a man in four years since her husband went to war and left her widowed.

Using his ingenuity and every resource at his command, Veiko manages to free himself after a protracted struggle that takes up a good half-hour of the film. Meanwhile, a few miles away, a Russian captain, Ivan (Viktor Bychkov) escapes while being taken by Soviet military police to be court-martialed for anti-Soviet sentiments. Circumstances bring all three together at a log outpost where Anni (Anni-Kristina Juuso) lives alone, sleeping in wooden tepees with log doorflaps. She gives them shelter and nurses them back to health but no one understands the other's language (the dialogue is in Finnish, Russian, and Saami, the language of Lapland). This leads to many confusing situations such as when Ivan tells them to "get lost" and they mistakenly think he is telling them that his name is Gerlost. Ivan wants to kill Veiko who tries to tell him that all he wants is peace, invoking the names of Tolstoy (War and Peace) and Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms).

In this Tower of Babel, the three can only reach each other through tone of voice, hand gestures, and body language, but Anni has no trouble convincing the men that she has "an aching below the tummy". Though Veiko is mistakenly thought to be a fascist since he still wears a German uniform, the three gradually form a bond based on mutual need and a common humanity. The Cuckoo is a gorgeously photographed and emotionally resonant film that is more than an anti-war fable; it is a film of transcendent beauty that directly touches the soul.

Absolutely heart-warming comedy about two stranded soldiers from opposite lines who get both taken in by a beautiful, child-of-nature like woman in the remote wilderness between Finland and the Soviet-Union. The trio speak three different languages, and on top of all the linguistic chaos, the two men naturally try to continue the warfare against each other. 'Kukushka' plays like an ode to humanity and is just a pure joy to watch. 8 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

A perennial subcategory of war films is the small-cast story of two enemies who encounter each other when isolated from their respective units and become mutually dependent. Hatred should be but isn't always subsumed to a common quest for survival. In 2001, "No Man's Land" showed the excruciatingly painful relationship of two adversaries trapped between lines during the Bosnia/Herzogovenia debacle. There was little humor in that film.

A surprisingly refreshing approach to the forced relationship between enemy soldiers comes to the screen in director Alexsandr Rogozhkin's "Kukushka" ("Cuckoo"). This fine Russian film is some welcome evidence of a resurgence in that country's filmmaking industry (with regard to quality). And it hasn't come too soon.

A Finnish soldier, Veikko, is chained by his unit to a boulder and left with a sniper rifle, food, water, ammunition and no means of escape. No reason is given for this unusual assignment which he resents, viewing it as rather suicidal. At that time in World War II Finland was an ally of Germany and the Finns were holding down considerable Soviet forces in their native land. Veikko wears a German uniform decorated with the twin lightning bolts of the SS. Through imaginative use of available resources Veikko is able to extricate himself.

Meanwhile, back at the Russian front, Ivan, a captain, sets off under guard with a driver and his unit's political officer for an investigation into his alleged anti-Soviet notes. Such investigations ended, in those days, with either execution or assignment to a "trampler" battalion (unarmed men sent ahead of an assault to set off mines and attract fire. They were not insurable.). Ivan knows what's to happen to him but luckily friendly fire from Russian aircraft kills the driver and commissar-type while leaving Ivan seriously wounded.

Enter Anni, a Laplander swathed in bulky clothes reflecting no hint of sexuality. She rescues the unconscious Ivan and takes him to her pad. This is pre-Nokia Finland at its indigenous best. As she takes care of the wounded officer the Finn shows up.

There are three languages in this movie: Russian, Finnish and the Lap dialect. The characters can't communciate verbally but they talk constantly, no meaning perceivable through the spoken word. Veikko, formerly a student, is predictably, stereotypically, disgusted with war. Ivan snarls with hatred for Germans and their allies, a very realistic portrayal.

Much of what goes on among the three is comic, especially when Anni, not having seen or heard from her husband in four years (and unlikely ever to again), expresses her now unbounded randiness first in words and then... In the process she starts looking less like a Laplander on a subsistence existence and more like a gal likely to be distracted by a call on her cell phone.

The evolving relationship of the three is realistic although the young Finn is allowed to mouth one too many anti-war sentiments for my taste. This is a story about a bizarre chance encounter, not "All Quiet on the Finnish Front."

Rogozhkin's direction is original but he owes, for one scene, some debt, I believe, to Ingmar Bergman. See the film and you'll figure out which one I'm talking about.

"Cuckoo" benefits enormously from the absence of music. The subtitles convey the dialogue but hearing the three languages without an overlay of music makes the story far more powerful.

The scenery is magnificent.

The ending is unsurprising but nonetheless affecting.

8/10.

'Kukushka' is a very deep and enjoyable movie. The background is the situation of 1944 at the North-Western front of the Soviet Union and there are only three characters, each one of them representing their own world. There are also three languages and because of each character interprets each other in the manner they want to hear there are actually nine pragmatical meanings for each speech. This messing up with things creates comical situations and I think that Russian viewers are able to pick up more amusing details than the other nationalities.

The characters become very much a stereotypic representations of what they are, perhaps even a too much but that way they are anyway more interesting than in barren realism. Taking in account that this is a Russian movie it certainly makes people want to see more Russian films in the future. The insignificant minor bugs in some historical details are so few that they shouldn't be heeded at all.

Since the movie was initially meant to be a staged drama, it is no wonder it rings some bells. In the 1950's Sartre wrote his famous play "Huis clos" whose essential point was how intolerable human presence can be when the commonness of language allows us to understand all the thoughts of the people we share the same space with. "The Hell, this is the Other", concluded Sartre.

In Kukushka, nobody of the three characters understands a word from what the other two have to say, yet they DO speak all the time. All the three, the Finn, the Saami, and the Russian, are well aware of the presence of the other two, but do not have to submit themselves to any common pattern of judgment. The other two are like objects which fit the world of the third in the way s/he would like them to. Thus, the lack of verbal communication, even if it caused some, almost fatal, misunderstandings, in the long term offered the three characters with a kind of bliss not one of them had ever expected. In short, this is a story about the beauty of life which is essentially impossible to share with others because it is purely contemplative.