Wings (1966) Krylya [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Larisa Shepitko
Writers: Valentin Ezhov, Natalya Ryazantseva
Stars: Mayya Bulgakova, Sergey Nikonenko, Zhanna Bolotova

For her first feature after graduating from the All-Russian State Institute for Cinematography (VGIK), Larisa Shepitko trained her lens on the fascinating Russian character actress Maya Bulgakova, who gives a marvelous performance as a once heroic Russian fighter pilot now living a quiet, disappointingly ordinary life as a school principal. Subtly portraying one woman’s desperation with elegant, spare camera work and casual, fluid storytelling, Shepitko, with Wings, announced herself as an important new voice in Soviet cinema.

This Russian film is about the fortunes of former war heroine flyer Nadezhda Petrukhina, who is working as a schoolteacher in the aftermath of the war and becoming increasingly dissatisfied with her lot. Her daughter Tanya (Zhanna Bolotova) has married an older man, Igor, who Petrukhina clearly thinks isn't good enough for her, while the teacher is herself courted by a museum director, Pavel Gavrilovich (Pantelejmon Krymov).

Centring on the former lady flyer and taking the film at a nice slow pace, we follow her through several days and activities such as going to a museum, catching up with old friends at the airfield, meeting Igor's more intellectualised friends, and chewing the fat with a cafe waitress, eventually waltzing with her to the strains of the Great Waltz.

'Wings' is a film of quiet beauty which remains long in the memory after you've seen it - whether it is the school play you remember, with the dancing Russian dolls, or the cleaner mopping the school corridors, or Boris the deputy head painting the walls, or the sight of Petrukhina muching sausage with the workers in the pub, or the final swoop of wings as she takes to the sky once more, or the flashbacks to her co-flyer sweetheart in the war.

More in My Blog