Le coucou

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.

1st watched 8/30/2003 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Aleksandr Rogozhkin): Strangely compelling movie about three people who can't understand each other's spoken words but somehow understand each other in the end. The movie is set at the end of World War II and begins with a prisoner of war being left and chained to a rock with very little in the amount of rations left for him. For about an hour, the viewers are treated to watching the prisoner meticulously putting together and executing a plan to remove the chains and be free. At the same time, we are introduced to a woman who is seen burying the dead in a war-torn area but keeping what is usable. One soldier wakes up while she's doing the burying and she basically takes him in and nurses him back to life. These are the three central characters in the rest of the film. They are thrown together by chance at a the woman's hut with nothing in the way of `modern conveniences.' The viewer gets to watch these characters `try' to interact with some humorous exchanges with the intent of helping each other survive. While watching you can't help but wonder how the exchanges would have been different if the characters would have stopped talking and used more sign language and object identification to explain themselves, but I guess the movie wouldn't have lasted very long and wouldn't have been as interesting. And at least this movie was definetly `interesting' and very thought provoking. This is yet another entry from another country that cares more about the story and the characters then special effects & action. Hooray for the filmmakers for giving us this gem!!

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

Russia's film industry is in a drought of international distribution, but the World War II-era drama KUKUSHKA(CUCKOO) seems set to break away from that rut. The film, by St. Petersburg-based director Alexander Rogozhkin, has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for limited distribution through American art-house theaters. Rogozhkin has achieved a level of recognition on the world festival circuit with his previous works, the comedy OSOBENNOSTI NATSIONALNOY OKHOTY (PECULIARTIES OF THE NATIONAL HUNT) and the Chechen-war drama BLOKPOST (CHECKPOINT).

PECULIARTIES OF THE NATIONAL HUNT, produced at Lenfilm Studios in 1994 during a low point in the studio's general track record, was a box office success in Russia, and spawned something of a franchise, with two sequels, spin-offs and even a brand of vodka named after Kuzmich, the tireless, boozing outdoorsman played by Viktor Bychkov. The plot of the original film involved a young Finnish man (played by Ville Haapasalo) coming to Russia to experience a real Russian hunt, only to fall in with Kuzmich and his motley group of friends, who seem more interested in drinking than hunting.

Work on the film OSOBENNOSTI NATSIONALNOY RYBALKI (PECULIARTIES OF NATIONAL FISHING) cemented the friendship between Bychkov and Haapasalo, who went from relative obscurity to becoming household names in their respective countries with subsequent work on other films and TV commercials.

Haapasalo, a Finnish graduate of the St. Petersburg Theater Arts Academy, also acts on stage in Finland and is working on new translations of classic Russian drama into Finnish. Having appeared together in a stage adaption of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Diary of a Madman," Haapasalo and Bychkov asked Rogozhkin to write a stage play for three people, something in which they could appear together. Rogozhkin accepted the challenge, and the screenplay for KUKUSHKA was the result.

"They asked me to write a play, but I didn't see a play," recalled Rogozhkin at a press conference before the film's release. "I saw the story I was writing as a film, and once I had the ending down, I knew I had the film."

A former history student, Rogozhkin was intrigued by the Continuation War, a protraction of the Russo-Finnish Winter War and part of the greater WWII conflict. The cease-fire with the Soviet Union began officially Sept. 4, 1944, although forces on both sides continued firing until the next morning. This is when the film's story begins.

Unaware of the conflict's end, one Soviet Army officer and one Finnish soldier are imprisoned in the wilderness for different, unexplained reasons. They escape through a mix of effort and circumstance, and end up in the hut of a lonely but spirited Saami woman who does not take sides, but takes care of - and comes to love - them both. Rogozhkin wanted to go beyond the story of three people converging in the hinterlands of war, to create a situation where three people speak three different languages but come to understand one another in other ways.

After some consultation with Haapasalo and others, Rogozhkin decided that the third person in the film would be a Saami woman, the correct term for the people more commonly known as the Lapp. The Saami language is part of the Finno-Ugric group, but is very different from Finnish. Traditionally, the Saami hunted wild reindeer, though they have adapted to herd semi-domesticated reindeer. The film offers a glimpse into Saami life through the microcosm of the life of Anni, a young widow living on the Karelian coast. Anni is played by Anni-Christina Juuso, a Saami who dealt with language barriers on the film's set. She does not speak Russian and depended upon Haapasalo for translation.

Haapasalo plays Veiko, a Finnish sniper - making the film's title a play on words, since "kukushka," or cuckoo, is also Russian military slang for sniper. Chained to a rock by SS officers, and clothed in an SS uniform that would condemn him to death if discovered by Russian patrols, Veiko spends a good portion of the film trying to extricate himself.

For the role, Haapasalo wore authentic Finnish army underclothes of the period, some of which belonged to his grandfather. "I changed after working on this film," Haapasalo said. "I began to see my grandfather in another light. I won't watch this film - I don't watch any of my films. But from what I know of it, I think the film will stand multiple viewings. It may take seeing it more than once to fully understand it."

Bychkov's portrayal of Captain Kartuzov is a real departure from his Kuzmich character. Bychkov put on some weight for the role, and his demeanor is solemn and conscientious, markedly different from his happy-go-lucky Kuzmich. The seriousness of the role broke his typecasting a little bit: "Some people who had addressed me informally before started calling me by my first name and patronymic after seeing the film," Bychkov said. KUKUSHKA premiered at the Moscow Film Festival in June 2002, where it won Silver St. George awards for Best Director and Best Actor (Haapasalo). The film has also been received favorably in Finland, and Haapasalo has received a Patriot of Finland Award from a Finnish veterans' association in Lahti.

The film has a lot riding on the Bychkov-Haapasalo rapport, but Rogozhkin is confident: "These are two actors with very different psycho-physical aspects," he admitted. "But they do have a peculiar chemistry."

And Bychkov says Juuso's contribution was no less important: "Despite the fact that Ville had to translate for her at every turn, she understood the story - with her heart."

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.