YMMV / The Cranes Are Flying

• Once Original, Now Common: Some modern online reviews will pan it as a dated piece of propaganda, but when it first came out, in the wake of De-Stalinization, it caused quite a stir on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Truth is, Tatiana Samoilova's performance as Veronika took Europe by storm not only because of her good looks, but also because, like an East German fan wrote her on a note, "Finally we see on the Soviet screen a face, not a mask". That is, instead of your typical Flat Character from older propaganda movies, here you have a complex, multi-faceted, even faulted character. Not to mention that audiences were finally able to weep at the pain of losing millions of their population in the war, and it was also the first time that subjects like draft dodging, war profiteering and the black market had been expressed on film.

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