Introduction to the Story Standing on the Wind

Introduction to the Story Standing on the Wind | Appreciation | Reflection

1962 black-and-white film 90 minutes.

Produced by Gorky Children's Film Studio of the Soviet Union.

Director: Stanislav Rostotsky Screenplay: Alexander Garic Stanislav Rostotsky Photography: Viacheslav Shumski

The main actors: Larissa Ruzina (as Svetlana), Vyacheslav Tikhonov (as Captain Suzdalev), Clara Ruzicu (as Natalia mikhailov) and Leonid Bykov (as Garkusha).

abstract

1941On June 20th, Svetlana went from Vladivostok in the east to a small town in the west to meet her fiance Igor, who is engaged in geological exploration. I don't want a war to break out on the way. Her suitcase was stolen. Unfortunately, she got typhus and was admitted to the infectious disease hospital in Novosibirsk. It was winter when she left the hospital. Svetlana had to wear a cotton cap because her hair was shaved off by infectious diseases.

After a long journey, the girl finally came to the small town in the west, to the house Igor told her in his letter, which is located on the edge of the city and stands in the wind. But she will never see her lover again. Igor left a note on the door saying that he had joined the army, went to the front, conquered Berlin and came back. He hoped Svetlana would wait for him. Svetlana decided to wait here for her fiance's victory. The troops occupying the house are about to leave. Before leaving, the soldier Lavren Tieev entrusted a safe to Svetlana and told her that a truck would pick up his personal letter.

As soon as the troops left, the editorial department of "Forward" run by the troops immediately occupied the house. Svetlana tries her best to help the editorial department with housework, chopping wood or washing clothes from morning till night every day. She gets along well with Captain Dolly Maximowna in the editorial department. Maximovna hoped that God would bless her husband and son in Leningrad. On New Year's Eve, she missed the happy New Year she spent with her husband at a friend's house last year. However, Svetlana's New Year is not happy: her mother is always ill, her grandmother is senile, and her father is always on duty for others in the hospital.

One day, Lavron Tiev called from the provincial executive committee and asked Svetlana to meet the truck driver on the bridge at the appointed time to get the safe. Svetlana met an engineer on the bridge and asked him about Igor. The engineer said that he knew this "smart young man", but he was bombed before he could tell the whereabouts of Igor. The soldier died in order to cover Svetlana. The driver never came. Svetlana returned to her residence in horror and found that Igor's door had been opened. She hurried in and saw a man lying on the sofa with a military coat on his face. Igor is back! She immediately squatted beside him, lifted her sleeves and wiped them on her cheeks. The soldier woke up, but it was Captain Suzdalev from the editorial department, who had just returned from an interview. Svetlana suddenly saw a white dress hanging in Igor's closet with a note pinned on it, which was a gift for her. At the New Year's party in the editorial department, when Svetlana appeared in front of people in uniform in this white dress, it seemed to bring hope for peace and happiness to everyone. She came to the grand event as Suzdalev's partner. Suzdalev poured out her feelings after drinking, but Svetlana stopped him, and she wanted to be loyal to her Igor forever.

One cloudy day, Suzdalev left the editorial department and Svetlana saw him off. On the way, she told him about her relationship with Igor, and Suzdalev gave her a pistol. When Svetlana came back through the snow, she found that the entire editorial department had been evacuated, leaving only Captain Lev in Juba waiting for her. Svetlana doesn't want to leave the house. She wants to wait here for Igor to come back. Just after the editorial department was evacuated, the field hospital came again, and Svetlana helped the medical staff to care for the sick and wounded. Sometimes, instead of nurses, she assists female surgeon Natalya Mihailovna Lovna in surgery, and she has little free time.

When spring came, the hospital received an order from the general staff of the army: emergency evacuation! Svetlana still won't leave home. Another company has come here, and it has become a frontier. The telephone line was also cut off, and guns were everywhere. Svetlana has been dressing the wounded. The defensive war lasted for five days and five nights, and the last batch of bread was eaten, and the ammunition was only enough for three days. The situation is very difficult. Between battles, the lives of commanders and soldiers are very monotonous. The postman Garkusha brought undeliverable letters from the post office to ease everyone's boredom. These letters sent before the war could not be delivered because the recipients went to the front. The soldiers each opened a letter for everyone to read. Suddenly, Svetlana heard familiar words: "... I thank you for everything, for living on the earth, for falling in love with me, for falling in love with you ..." It turned out that this was a letter she sent to Igor before the war. The soldier had a hard time reading, so he let her read. Svetlana sobbed and read the letter, but the soldiers still wanted to hear it, so she read what was not in the letter: "No matter how long it takes, I will wait until you come back." I know you will come, you will ring the doorbell: three short and one long, then I will open the door for you, hug you and say: I will always come to your side. "

The contact between the company and the superior was interrupted, and Svetlana offered to send a letter to General Jizik for the company. Because the letter said Svetlana was local, the general sent her back. After several days of fierce fighting, 27 people in the company died in this house, and less than 10 people are about to leave. Svetlana sent them away and still stayed. The field hospital passed by here again on the way to attack with the fighting troops and stayed for a while. Among the wounded were Captain Suzdalev, who asked Svetlana if Igor was the only one. Svetlana's answer is that no one can replace her Igor. After the field hospital left, Colonel Bitson from the editorial department of Forward passed by here again. He told Svetlana that most of the comrades in the editorial department had died. Soon, Lavren Tief, whom Svetlana first met in this house, came to get the safe.

Svetlana is the only one left in the empty house. In a trance, she seemed to hear the intermittent voices of the comrades who fought with her in this room, and also heard the door * * *: three short and one long. She doesn't know: Is her Igor really back, or will she stay on the battlefield forever? ...

Distinguish and appreciate

Rostosky, the director of this film, has made three war movies. The three films have different perspectives and styles. The first film started shooting in May and was co-produced with Czechoslovakia. The second is this film, and the third is Silent Dawn here. Rostovski has a deep feeling about this war. As soon as the war broke out, he went to the front and lost a leg in the battle. According to statistics, out of every 100 Soviet youths born in 1922, only 3 survived the war. Although Rostovski is disabled, he is one of the three lucky ones. His experience makes his three war movies have a common feature: that is, he has a strong sense of participation in the suffering of the hero on the screen.

"Standing in the Wind" is not a positive expression of the heroic battle on the front line, but shows how the relatives of the soldiers lived in those hard years. The film briefly expounds the fate of an ordinary Russian girl and her beautiful heart. Her loyal love for her fiance overcame the cruelty of war.

This film was shot in the period of comprehensive innovation in the content and form of Soviet films. On the basis of inheriting the tradition of Russian literature and art, this film explores new expression techniques. It should be said that the image of the heroine Svetlana is related to Russian classical literature. She is brave, kind and simple, loves the motherland and is faithful to love, which reminds people of yaroslav Na who misses her husband so much, or makes people compare her with The Decemberists in Necrasov's works and the crystal-pure girl in Turgenev's works. While making Svetlana's image romantic and poetic, the director tried his best to show that she was a very ordinary girl, and there were thousands of such girls in Soviet countries at that time. Thus, the story about Svetlana became a story about a whole generation of Soviet youth, who were all attacked by war in their youth.

Movies are not traditional dramatic structures, but fresh prose poems. Just like Konstantin Simonov's famous poem "Wait for me", this is the story of a young girl waiting for her fiance to come back from the front. In The Destiny of Svetlana, the original traditional story has been integrated into the content of the present era: Svetlana is not passively waiting for her fiance like a girl in a boudoir, but makes unremitting efforts with her fiance for future victory, peace and happiness in silent dedication. Sometimes she became an assistant to a war correspondent, sometimes she took on the duties of a nurse, and sometimes she met an enemy soldier.

This film is similar to an indoor drama, and the plot is always confined to a narrow space: a house standing on the edge of the city. The director let the heroine live in this house. Just like this house, although the wind is blowing from all directions, she still stands upright. The director also brought the audience into the house. First, the wind and waves of troop withdrawal hit here. Here, we live in a battle report, a field hospital and an infantry company in turn, turning a peaceful house into a strong fortress. The audience met some people in the war with Svetlana. Later, the troops began to attack, and the troops evacuated from this house passed by one after another. In this way, the director consciously focused on the arduous war course of the motherland and people of this family. Around Svetlana, the film describes fighting, short breathing, death and victory. The image of Svetlana, which runs through the whole play, connects several independent short stories in series, making the script structure of the film quite innovative.

There are several scenes in the film that are handled very delicately. At the beginning of the film, Svetlana travels across the country from the east to a small town in the west. She knows nothing about war. In order to find the sign of "district civil registration office", she lit a match, which was not allowed in the war years when air strikes were frequent. She also asked the patrol where the bridge was. The patrol said, "If you are so interested in this bridge, you will have to be executed according to wartime laws." Her behavior outlined how young, naive and inexperienced she was, but the vigilant patrol became suspicious of her, thinking that she was disguised as a patient and wearing a cotton hat, so the patrol lieutenant asked her to take off her cotton hat. When Svitlana's bald head appeared on the screen, everyone was silent. How cruel it is for a girl, this detail indicates that the heroine will experience a more severe test.

The scene of the New Year's party also aroused people's thousands of thoughts. In those hard days, food was scarce, and the editorial department started the party by everyone paying the rations. Svetlana didn't have a ration card, so Suzdalev paid the ration for her and asked her to come to the party as a partner. When Svetlana appeared in front of everyone in the white dress left by her fiance, although she had just grown a short layer of hair on her head, she looked very feminine in this harsh environment. Her appearance is amazing. She seems like a holy angel, bringing people the hope of peace and happiness, which makes it completely understandable for Suzdalev to express her strong desire for feelings after the party. Suzdalev said to her, "I just came back from a hellish place, from blood, mud and death, and suddenly I met you! In this crazy world, I am with you, you and me! I feel happy. " The director tries to explain that these ordinary Soviets love peace and happiness, and it is to defend peace and harmony on earth that they have to take up arms. Highlighting humanity and humanitarianism is a remarkable feature of Soviet films in this period.

The image of Svitlana is completely different from that of Zoya in Soviet war movies. She is not a hero, she didn't die for her country, and she didn't make great achievements. She is just an ordinary Russian girl, but she is sincere. Most of her life in this house is cleaning the floor, washing clothes, chopping wood and taking care of the sick and wounded. The person who was driven away by the war lived in this house for a while and then left, but she stayed here all the time.

There is also a scene with strong artistic appeal: the surgeon Natalia, the nurse and Svetlana stayed up all night to complete the operation for the wounded. In the silence of the morning, they listened in amazement, as if they heard something dripping. It turned out that a birch tree in the yard was hit by shrapnel, and the pulp from the wound on the trunk slowly dripped into an old helmet. Natalia sighed and said, "Nothing special, just spring." This makes people feel that the vitality on earth will not be destroyed by war, and truth will always overcome evil. Here, the director explored the expressive and visual film language.

The scene of reading letters is full of sense of humor: several spots of distant peaceful life shine on the temporarily calm house, and the simple care of unknown writers is so amazing in this situation, such as a letter asking whether to sell domestic livestock, an inexplicable letter from a scholar to his "respected colleague" about "species migration and evolution", and a letter of joy because of receiving Jadat's convalescence certificate ... and finally Svetlana. When she read this letter, photographer Shumski's lens slid across everyone's face, showing the audience smiling faces and happy eyes ... The sincere tenderness preserved in the crumpled little triangular envelope soothed people's hearts and filled the houses damaged by the shells with warmth.

The battle of the infantry company was interrupted by a sudden German broadcast. In the silence, there was a waltz melody that could be heard when you walked through the suburbs from the enemy trenches in the summer evening. A warm and sad female voice was inserted into this melody: "Vanya! Vanechka! Stop filming, stop filming, honey, stop filming, spring is coming, Wanneqika, I want to live, be happy, love ... "These words made the soldiers silent for a minute. In this minute, they may think of their lover's face, the quiet garden by the river, and the nightingale at dawn ... but it only lasted for a minute, and they immediately understood that this was not a Russian woman talking. The soldiers of the infantry company immediately turned homesickness into hatred for the enemy and continued to shoot bravely at the enemy.

At the end of the film, Svetlana heard the door * * *: in this empty house, three are short and one is long. This is an endless ending, which can be understood as a happy ending: Igor has returned, and it can also be considered that Igor has stayed on the battlefield forever. * * * It's just Svetlana's imagination. Judging from the modern concept of playing, it doesn't matter whether Igor will come back or not. Svetlana's loyalty and pure love overcome everything, which is the main theme of the film.