Reviews

The story resembles traditional Russian fairy tales of Baba Jaga the witch living in the house standing on hen's feet. There is this Lappish girl, much younger than the tradiotional old crone from folk stories, left alone in the middle of nowhere. This girl is able to fend for herself albeit she could use some help. Then some day there are these two soldiers. One is a handsome, idealistic youth with some basic education, the other is middle-aged, who is a very basic person with a soft spot for beauty. Both of them are tired of this aimless war between facists and communistic troops. They are mere pawns on the chess board. They don't share any common language, so the communication is quite complicated and humorous at first. As time goes by, the words are no longer needed as the emotions, gestures relay the message. Two of them fall in love with each other and the third one is swept aside as the two of them share a moment of passion. It can only be illustrated as a physical lust, which can only be shared by two youngsters thrown in the moment of "Maybe there is tomorrow, so let's take the little fun we can have now and here". The fate is merciful as the third one gets his share in the end. Before this evening of the shares, the young one has to saved from the death in the dragged on episode. The Russian are very prone to show and see mythical side in their stories due to their religion, but there has to be limit for this nonsense. All in all Kukushka was a good movie, but there was some open humorous cues (a kettle of hallucinatory mushrooms, a jealous suitor etc.), which could have been used to add more stand up comedy in this film. It would have lightened the prevalent, usually so serious message of peace.