Clear sky (film)

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Movie
German title Clear sky
Original title Tschistoje njebo / Чистое небо
Country of production Soviet Union
original language Russian
Publishing year 1961
length 110 minutes
Rod
Director Grigory Chuchrai
script Daniil Yakovlevich Khrabovsky
production Mosfilm
music Mikhail Siv
camera Sergei Polujanov
occupation

Klarer Himmel ( Russian : Tschistoje njebo ) is a Soviet feature film from 1961 and is considered the most important thaw film in the context of de-Stalinization . The action time covers the period from New Year's Eve 1940 to the present approx. 1959/60. He won the Grand Prix of the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival . In the GDR , the film novel was printed in Filmspiegel before the German premiere, in 1962 the production was also shown in West Germany , and in 1963 in the USA . Other performance titles are Ciel Pur ( France , Belgium ), Klare Hemel ( Flemish ), Ceú Limpo ( Brazil ), Cielo despejado ( Mexico ), Czyste niebo ( People's Republic of Poland ), Cieli puliti (Italy), Cer senin ( Romania ), Kirkas taivas ( Finland ), Katharos ouranos ( Greece ), Clear Skies ( Anglo-American ). The premiere took place on May 20, 1961. The German synchronization was done by DEFA ; the German premiere took place on June 8, 1962.

action

Present around 1959/60, a Soviet military airfield . A state-of-the-art fighter with delta wings and the identification “02” is to complete its first test flight, its pilot is Aleksei Astachow. There is great tension. Fire and ambulance vehicles appear threatening. The plane rolls to take off.

A Pobeda - taxi hurtling along a country road. The passenger is a tense young woman. At their request, the taxi will stop in the middle of the street. When she and the driver get out, the test aircraft chases over them. The young woman begins to remember.

New Year's Eve 1940. At a New Year's Eve party in 1940, the young student Sascha briefly meets an unknown military pilot, with whom she falls in love straight away, but loses sight of him. After the outbreak of war in June 1941 she happened to see him again in an air raid shelter , but did not dare to identify herself and speak to him. She manages to get hold of his work phone number and makes contact. They fall in love, but he has to move to the front while she starts working as a lathe operator in a factory. Sascha is pregnant by him and gives birth to a son.

Aleksei is a successful pilot and is awarded but reportedly falls. In fact, he survived his crash and fall into German captivity . After the war ended in 1945, he was arrested by the Soviet authorities because they distrust the prisoners of war. His medal is revoked. After his release, he visits Sascha. His face is terribly disfigured by a huge scar. He is completely demoralized and addicted to alcohol. He is fired after problems at work. The attempt to be rehabilitated by a company organization fails in the face of a larger than life statue of Stalin.

1953. Stalin dies in the hopeless situation of Alekseis . The family seems paralyzed. Then a pale sun appears. Its rays grow stronger and slowly thaw snow and ice until the ice masses of a river turn into a torrent.

Aleksei is appointed to a ministry, where his case is being tried again. Sascha has to wait in front of the building. It's getting dark. After an almost endless wait, Aleksei appears. His expression is blank. He opens his right hand. In it lies his medal: " Hero of the Soviet Union ".

Present around 1960. The test aircraft rises through the clouds into the blue sky. Sascha and the taxi driver get back into the Pobeda and disappear behind a hilltop.

Stylistic devices

As in Tschuchrai's The Last Shot ( The Forty- First), one of the first Soviet feature films about the Russian Civil War , in which the White Army was not only staged as a horde of bandits , an elaborate color dramaturgy was used that culminated directly before and then reached in the "thaw" sequence. In addition, expressionist stylistic devices were used extensively , which are more typical of German feature films of the 1920s.

criticism

... This is, after the "forty-first" and the " Ballad of the Soldier ", the third "thaw film" by the young Russian director Grigory Chukhrai. He and screenwriter Khrabrowitsky undertake with narrative skills to follow in one and a half hours of film the story of an aviator and his lover from the outbreak of the “Patriotic War” until after the 20th Party Congress (1956). The pilot is celebrated as a Soviet hero during the war, then the Germans shoot him down and he is taken prisoner. After the victory, he is ostracized by the party because he did not commit hara-kiri according to orders after he was shot down. He is demoted to a factory apprentice and surrenders to the drink. Only after the official condemnation of Stalinism does he receive medals and honors back. The arguments of the second part recommend to be put on paper. The color photography of Tschuchrai's first film was far more progressive. This one obviously suffers from the absence of the cameraman Urusevsky.

Film , in: Die Zeit, June 8, 1962

… Even in the first reviews after the internal screening of the play in front of party people, artists and journalists, director Tschuchrai received the highest praise. “Pravda” stated: “A true-to-life film.” Even before the official premiere - it is scheduled for this week - the critics promised the film an overwhelming success. The UPI news agency reported from Moscow: "In the presence of numerous correspondents from the West, the invited audience applauded particularly loudly at the scene of the announcement of the death of Stalin."

Soviet Union. The great dictator , in: Der Spiegel No. 21 of May 17, 1961

The film was so badly distorted by censorship that it conveyed this fate only in hints that are hardly understandable today. Here romantic emotionality turned into sentimentality, simplicity into simplification and explosiveness into a journalistic cliché.

Engel, p. 125.

Trivia

The male lead actor Yevgeny Urbanski died on November 5, 1965 at the age of 33 while shooting the film "Director" near Bukhara in a stunt when his truck overturned. The film work was canceled and material that had already been shot was used for the documentary "Yevgeny Urbansky" (1967).

Lore

The Russian original was already a VHS edition in the 1990s, and later a DVD edition. The German dubbed version created by DEFA is obviously in the film archive of the Federal Archives ; the rights are held by the DEFA Foundation .

literature

Web links