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The Cuckoo 2002 |
Review by Jonathan Cornwell |
Directed by Alexander Rogozhkin
PG-13, 100 min. (sexual content, violence) |
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Starring: Anni-Christina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo, Viktor Bychkov
Producer: Sergei Selyanov
Screenplay: Alexander Rogozhkin
Cinematography: Andrei Zhegalov
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Released: 7.11.03 (Limited)
(In Russian, Finnish and Sami with subtitles) |
Rating:
  (out of ) |
The Cuckoo is a little gem of a film, made in Russia and spoken in three languages, one for each of its main
characters. The story centers on friendship built through nonverbal communication, as three people eventually overcome
mixed messages and frustration to understand one another in their own way. Set in 1944 Finland at the end of the war,
the Germans are in full retreat from the advancing Russians, and along the way Veiko (Ville Haapasalo), a Finnish soldier,
is chained to a rock in an SS uniform and left for the Russians to dispose of. With patience and diligence, he eventually
frees himself and follows a local Lapp woman, Anni (Anni-Kristina Juusso), who has already rescued another soldier,
Sholti (Viktor Bychkov), a Russian who was part of a convoy that was bombed from the air, leaving him for dead. Veiko
arrives at Anni's homestead, a humble shelter that relies on deer and fish to survive. The comedy starts when the three
try and communicate, all in different tongues - Anni speaks Sami, Veiko Finnish, and Sholti Russian. Sholti thinks Veiko
is a German and tries to kill him several times, Veiko only wants to find his way home, and Anni relishes the opportunity
to have two men around after four years without her departed husband.
Director Alexander Rogozhkin touches on man's inability to communicate despite all good intentions, which results in
a volatile mix of frustration, anger, and misunderstanding, elements that threaten to tear apart a fragile peace. At first
the two men distrust each other as Anni tends to their injuries, which prevent either of them from traveling over long
distances. She uses a combination of folk remedies and tender care to nurse them back to good health, a good deed
with a silver lining; she soon chooses one of them for her own "physical needs." And, of course, they both can tend
to the homestead's many daily chores in light of the upcoming winter hardship. Their three-way relationship becomes
an uneasy bond that sees them through their predicament.
As the story unfolds, their relationship, based mainly on hand signals and facial expressions, is tested when their truce
is threatened by outside influences, trumpeting the end of the war. Rogozhkin uses the harsh but enticing landscape to
portray a symbiotic relationship between the characters and nature - as winter closes in the men and woman must
learn to trust one another in order to survive the elements and one another. The humor that arises out of such circumstance
is at the heart of The Cuckoo, a film that uses its comedic elements to espouse the authenticity of human distrust
turned to friendship. The claustrophobic-like environment, ironic considering their locale, that the characters find themselves in
corresponds with Rogozhkin's desire to study the human condition at its most vulnerable. It's a film worth seeking out.
© 2003 Jonathan Cornwell
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 | Masterpiece - Film perfection |
| Excellent - A Must See |
| Good - Highly Recommended |
| Fair - Worth seeing |
| Average - Viewable, but not recommended |
| Below average - View at own risk |
| Poor - Avoid at all costs |
| Very poor - An embarassment to the film industry |
| Zero | Awful - One of the worst films ever made |
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