"Clear Skies" is quite a remarkable film; it deals with a lot of uncomfortable realities of the era preceding it in a surprisingly and admirably frank way, while at the same time managing to fit within the state guidelines for expression of its era -- which were relaxed relative to Stalin's but still restrictive enough to force the filmmakers to be creative in obeying them. This makes for an affecting film in more ways that one.
On the side of things, perhaps, on the socialist-realist front, our protagonists are a heroic pilot and a hardworking factory girl. Their early love affair is cute, but direct out of the most choreographed movie-land romances. But when he doesn't come back from Germany, we see, in rather stark contrast, a lot of the hardships that people their place and time faced -- the lines in the cold for bread, the shared and unfurnished living quarters, the crowds standing on train platforms making themselves up and then squinting for the briefest glimpse of their loved ones. And it's all the more believably real since it's in a film that was released to the people who had experienced it not that many years before.
Amid it all, there are some very creative and artistic shots, especially showing Sasha's dreams and distressed psychological state, which are worth appreciating on their own.
When our hero returns, things move from the difficult to the near political -- suspicion falls on him not just from the government, who keeps calling him back, but from his fellow citizens, who don't believe what he did. He can't get a job or join the Communist Party. And we can't help but know these things contribute to his falling into misery and excessive drink. All this is done sensitively and tastefully -- and the point is still made.
Interestingly, as far as I could detect, Stalin is mentioned once and seen once in this film. We see his larger-than-life statue only as Aleksei is being denied party membership out of paranoia that he might have been a traitor. We hear his name only when it is announced that he has died and, with quite literal images of sheets of ice breaking, things begin to thaw.
The ending, with Aleksei getting a surprise medal and returning to flying, is fast and trite on the surface -- but it comes after a long and pointed sequence of Sasha waiting hours for him outside the government office and clearly worried that he might have been sent to prison.
A very daring and touching piece for approaching a political subject in the time it did and with the frankness it did, and a bit more uneven but no less interesting for the mitigating elements it had to include.
On the side of things, perhaps, on the socialist-realist front, our protagonists are a heroic pilot and a hardworking factory girl. Their early love affair is cute, but direct out of the most choreographed movie-land romances. But when he doesn't come back from Germany, we see, in rather stark contrast, a lot of the hardships that people their place and time faced -- the lines in the cold for bread, the shared and unfurnished living quarters, the crowds standing on train platforms making themselves up and then squinting for the briefest glimpse of their loved ones. And it's all the more believably real since it's in a film that was released to the people who had experienced it not that many years before.
Amid it all, there are some very creative and artistic shots, especially showing Sasha's dreams and distressed psychological state, which are worth appreciating on their own.
When our hero returns, things move from the difficult to the near political -- suspicion falls on him not just from the government, who keeps calling him back, but from his fellow citizens, who don't believe what he did. He can't get a job or join the Communist Party. And we can't help but know these things contribute to his falling into misery and excessive drink. All this is done sensitively and tastefully -- and the point is still made.
Interestingly, as far as I could detect, Stalin is mentioned once and seen once in this film. We see his larger-than-life statue only as Aleksei is being denied party membership out of paranoia that he might have been a traitor. We hear his name only when it is announced that he has died and, with quite literal images of sheets of ice breaking, things begin to thaw.
The ending, with Aleksei getting a surprise medal and returning to flying, is fast and trite on the surface -- but it comes after a long and pointed sequence of Sasha waiting hours for him outside the government office and clearly worried that he might have been sent to prison.
A very daring and touching piece for approaching a political subject in the time it did and with the frankness it did, and a bit more uneven but no less interesting for the mitigating elements it had to include.