The Cuckoo
by Aleksandr Rogozhkin
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Product details
Actor: Aleksei Kashnikov, Aleksei Panzheyev, Anni-Kristiina Juuso, Viktor Bychkov, Ville HaapasaloDirector: Aleksandr Rogozhkin
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: Finnish (Original Language); German (Original Language); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled
Running Time: 103 minutes
Release Date: 2003-12-02
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
VHS Movie Reviews of The Cuckoo
Movie Review: This is a one-of-a-kind. Thank God for foreign films
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are at all like I am and find that many Western films are simply not doing it for you, might I suggest a Russian film subtitled in three different languages?????
It is a good thing (not Martha Stewart-like!) to have Amazon friends with which to watch, learn, observe and share. I watched this film "The Cuckoo" (KUKUSHKA) by famed director Alexander Rogozskin with one friend who said to me "You really need to see this film. I can't think of anything like it that I have ever seen!" WHY NOT! So we did, and he was right!
I speak only for myself when I say that this film has to be one of the most pleasantly odd (if that would be the best word to use) movies that I have ever seen. This film tells three very separate stories, in three different languages and cultural understandings, with three unique characters who, because of World War 2 are all thrown together in a place and time and must communicate. Shot on location in the upper regions of Asia, the story of a Finnish sniper, a disgraced Russian Captain and a native Lapp woman comes vividly, comically and tragically to life as Rogozhkin spins a tale of how humanity rises above war and death, how compassion transcends language, and how basically alike we all are as human beings. These three "misfits" all desire love, sex, touch, beauty, peace and tranquility. This is what each of them had before the War "enlisted" them involuntarily away from what they once knew. War has made them resourceful in ways they probably could have never learned otherwise, but the War has become tiresome and they long, no yearn for sweet humanity once again. What is fascinating about this film (yes you must be prepared to read subtitles!) is that each character speaks a different tongue, and you must remember that what you are reading is the character's true thoughts and not what the other character is understanding! Once you get that point, the rest is cake! This film was a challenge that I was up to, and I am glad that I accepted it. When Western films are not filling the void that I so feel, I find myself turning to the East and longing for a way to view life that is not American. This is an incredible humanitarian film that is beautifully and ingeniously rendered. In the "special featurette", director Rogozhkin and members of his team make it very clear that this film could actually border "on Boredom" because of the solitary way in which the tale needed to be shot and told. I never was bored. I was transfixed and grateful that once again I had experienced something that I otherwise might have overlooked.
Movie Review: Uniquely original "Cuckoo"-never seen anything like it!
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Aleksandr Rogozhkin was awarded the Russian Film of the Year Prize in 2002 for "The Cuckoo" with this following honorarium: "For the memory of its mise-en-scene, and the originality and metaphorical and humanistic force of its scenario about the problems of communication among human beings." High praise indeed for what directors/ artistes long for!
"The Cuckoo" is so uniquely original in my experience as a lover of film, it is quite a struggle to express how I feel about the film. Perhaps that is the point!.. "The Cuckoo" is a simple, yet deeply metaphorical story, taking place towards the conclusion of WW2 in Upper Lapland, Finland. where a condemned Finnish sniper, a Court Marshalled Russian soldier, and a young Lapland widow, who speak three different languages are brought together and learn how to communicate beyond words. Each character has become resourceful in his/her own right as the War has forced them to be. Each character had been something and someone different before the War, and now, as the War is ending, each must decide who they will become. Each babbles on at each other in their own tongues, never apologising or trying to understand the other. Some of this is quite comical, as what each person thinks they are understanding is not what is actually communicated at all! What IS divulged to the viewer, in a very clever way, is the entire backstory of each character WITHOUT the characters themselves EVER understanding that backstory. What we see on screen, then, is how love, compassion and humanity are communicate; so as you can see this is a very different kind of a film!..The audience knows what the characters do not, but the characters learn what the audience can only observe. Very different....very unique....highly complex....yet so very, very simple.
There are scenes in this film that will be indelibly etched on my brain, they are that unusual!
The featurette on the DVD is one of the finest I have ever seen in regards to a director's approach to a film and the actor's sense of how and what their characters should be. You learn a lot about the nature of filmmaking in Russia, and a refreshing "Non-Western" approach to telling a story. This film is a special find and a real treasure! 103 entrancing minutes!
Movie Review: War, friendships and kindness of strangers
Summary: 5 Stars
Of all WWII films, this one is one of the most unusual and entertaining I came across lately. We meet Finish soldier who is abandoned to die because he refuses to fight any more; Russian soldier on his way to excution who is deemed not loyal and Lapp woman who has spent last four years alone fighting for her own survival and waiting for her husband to come back from the war. These three people strike unlikely bond, which is even more amazing considering that they each speak different language. We learn thru their interaction that they deeply care about each other -- but in their own ways. They also seem to want to think that whatever it is that they are thinking is what the other person is thinking too. So it comes this wonderful tale about three people who live real life together close to the very end of the war, but at the same time they all build their own reality too. I particularly liked the female character who is strong, self-sifficient adn resourceful. She knows what she wants and goes for it. She is an enchatress, hunter, cook, wife, lover and mother. It is almost funny when a Russian soldier calls woman like that, living all alone in the cold mountain "stupid woman", considering she managed to survive on her own for all that time. Absolutely entertaining and touching movie.Movie Review: A trilingual film of comic misunderstandings and heartwarming friendship
Summary: 4 Stars
The 2002 Russian production KUKUSHKA ("The Cuckoo") is an entertaining tale of mutual understanding across language barriers on the Finland-Russian front in World War II. As the film begins Veikko (Ville Haapasalo), a recently drafted Finnish student who doesn't seen the point of fighting, is being chained to a rock. Punished for insubordination, he is forced to wear an SS uniform so he won't surrender, and given a gun to shot passing Russian troops. Only a couple of kilometers away Ivan (Viktor Bychkov), a Russian soldier who has just been arrested for the counter-revolutionary activity of writing poetry, is set free when his jailers perish in a bombing. Both of these condemned men are taken in by Anni (Anni-Kristiina Juuso), a Sami woman resident in the area, who holds on to her small farm four years after her husband disappeared.
Each of these three characters cannot speak the language of the others, and Ivan initially hopes to kill Veikko, whom he believes to be a Nazi soldier. The misunderstandings that arise make for fine comedy, but the final reconciliation amongst the three characters is heartwarming. The cinematography really brings out the beauty of the land above the Arctic Circle, and the writers have represented the traditions of the Sami with care. Director Aleksandr Rogozhkin has expertly handled the actors and the action.
The DVD extras are quite entertaining, especially Juuso's bafflement at the suggestion that the Sami people are sex-obsessed.
I watched this film as a student of Finno-Ugrian linguistics resident in Finland, passionate about the Finnish and Sami languages and with training in Russian as well. Audiences with different backgrounds might not care as much for the film, and you might find it a three-star effort instead of four. Nonetheless, I am sure you'll find KUKUSHKA an entertaining film.
Movie Review: Perfect winner, artistic, complex but very very simple,
Summary: 5 Stars
very simple and at the same time complicated theme with the perfect flow of three different languages. viewing World War II from very different angle in a funny but living story. i enjoyed it.
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