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The Cuckoo review
:. Director: Aleksandr Rogozhkin
:. Starring: Anni-Christina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo
:. Running Time: 1:39
:. Year: 2002
:. Country: Russia
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A work of a bare beauty, The Cuckoo offers a subtle combination of humanity and humor set against the most absurd background, war.
In 1944, as Nazi allied Finland is getting close to sign the armistice, a Finnish sniper, Veiko, has been chained to a stone and dressed as SS so that he won't run away or surrender. After breaking away, he arrives at the cabin of a young Lapp, Anni, who is taking care of Ivan, a wounded Russian soldier she found on a road. The three form an unlikely trio where nobody speaks the same language. The two enemies will have to learn to cohabit while competing for the attention of a lonely woman.
While the setting and two enemies stuck together might be reminiscent of No Man's Land, The Cuckoo focuses on the re-humanization of man rather than on the absurd opposition of ideas. In the tradition of Russian cinema, The Cuckoo finds its beauty in its slow pace and relationship with nature. The three characters must learn to live with each other, as they are prisoners of nature. Anni is indeed living in almost medieval fashion, by a lake, in the middle of nowhere; a perfect setting to reeducate the two soldiers and humanize them by teaching basic human values again. Bucolic lyricism and silence are used as metaphors for peace while the rock to which Veiko was attached refers his enrollment and obligations to the army. Anni, who is a mother and a lover figure at the same time, symbolizes the homeland, a return to roots and civilization.
Far from being pedant, the film is hilarious, playing very well off the numerous misunderstandings between the characters. Once they finally understand each other, the two soldiers become friends. This subtle allusion, which is the heart of the film, shows that war is the result of an absence of communication.
Such a character-driven film relies mostly on the actors and they are great. Wisely, the director made each actor says his or her lines in the adequate dialect so that none of the actors, just like their characters, understands what the others are saying. The result is even more realistic in that it never looks acted.
Stripped of any filmmaking artifices, The Cuckoo is one of those rare and beautiful moments of cinema.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
Movie Reviews: from 2012 to present
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