The following may be a spoiler.
The plot is very standard, in a way - Valiko, nicknamed Mimino (georgian for "Falcon") is a Georgian helicopter pilot, hauling sometimes very odd goods and people between remote mountain villages. One day he meets a friend from a flying school - now, a pilot of a transcontinental airliner. The friend is accompanied by a beautiful stewardess that Mimino falls for. He decides to change his life, start doing bigger and better things. After much trouble and misfortune, his dream becomes true - only he soon realizes, that his heart really belongs there, in the misty mountains of Georgia.
This film would've become just one of hundreds of similar feel-good movies, that are forgotten soon after release. However, it was filmed by a great Danelia, and so the plot became secondary, and the characters, their interactions, their feelings and personal and cultural differences became the main driving force. The film cleverly exploits (to the extend allowed by the Soviet censorship at the time) the often unflattering stereotypes that Caucasian people had in Russia, the cultural clashes between different characters (the guy that Mimino befriends in Moscow is an Armenian, a neighboring nation that had sort of a cultural rivalry with Georgians; he also comes from a different social background). It also has some thinly veiled criticism of Brezhnev-era corruption. Some of the characters are not as well developed as the main two, but movie is still very good. Unfortunately, a lot of plot's cleverness will be lost on someone unfamiliar with Soviet society in that time period.
Still a very good movie to watch !
The plot is very standard, in a way - Valiko, nicknamed Mimino (georgian for "Falcon") is a Georgian helicopter pilot, hauling sometimes very odd goods and people between remote mountain villages. One day he meets a friend from a flying school - now, a pilot of a transcontinental airliner. The friend is accompanied by a beautiful stewardess that Mimino falls for. He decides to change his life, start doing bigger and better things. After much trouble and misfortune, his dream becomes true - only he soon realizes, that his heart really belongs there, in the misty mountains of Georgia.
This film would've become just one of hundreds of similar feel-good movies, that are forgotten soon after release. However, it was filmed by a great Danelia, and so the plot became secondary, and the characters, their interactions, their feelings and personal and cultural differences became the main driving force. The film cleverly exploits (to the extend allowed by the Soviet censorship at the time) the often unflattering stereotypes that Caucasian people had in Russia, the cultural clashes between different characters (the guy that Mimino befriends in Moscow is an Armenian, a neighboring nation that had sort of a cultural rivalry with Georgians; he also comes from a different social background). It also has some thinly veiled criticism of Brezhnev-era corruption. Some of the characters are not as well developed as the main two, but movie is still very good. Unfortunately, a lot of plot's cleverness will be lost on someone unfamiliar with Soviet society in that time period.
Still a very good movie to watch !