Kukushka (2002)

Director:

Aleksandr Rogozhkin

Writer:

Aleksandr Rogozhkin (writer)

Release Date:

18 October 2002 (Estonia)

Genre:

Drama | War | Comedy

Tagline:

She's Making Peace One Man at a Time.

Plot:

September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish...

Plot Keywords:

Chained | Captain | Finland | Soldier | Lapp

Awards:

17 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Anni-Kristiina Juuso	...	Anni
Ville Haapasalo	...	Veikko (as Ville Khaapasalo)
Viktor Bychkov	...	Ivan or Psoltõ
Mikhail Korobochkin
Aleksei Kashnikov
Denis Aksenov
Aleksei Panzheyev
Aleksandr Kuykka
Vladimir Matveyev
Aleksandr Zubkin
Vladimir Knysh
Sergei Antonov
Valeri Yakovlev
Sergei Berzin
Aleksandr Melnikov

Also Known As:

Кукушка (Russia)
The Cuckoo (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and violence.

Runtime:

99 min | Finland:105 min | Canada:103 min (Ontario)

Country:

Russia

Language:

Saami | Finnish | Russian | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12A | USA:PG-13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Zurich) | Germany:12 | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Kandalaksha, Murmansk Oblast, Russia

Company:

Kinokompaniya CTB

Trivia:

Anni-Kristiina Juuso never saw the complete script for this film, she only got her lines in Finnish, which she then translated into Sámi.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: At the beginning of the film, the Russian jeep with Ivan as a prisoner on it is seen moving on a straight road and at low speed. However, the driver of the jeep makes abrupt steering movements which is incoherent with the path of the jeep shown.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

A film of transcendent beauty

Somewhere in the forests of Northern Europe during the closing days of World War II, Finnish support for the Nazi cause is nearing an end. Veiko (Ville Haapsalo), a Finnish soldier has lost his will to fight. Forced to wear an SS uniform by his unit, he is chained to a rock and ordered to kill as many Russians as he can before one will eventually kill him. He is known as a "cuckoo", a sniper on a suicide mission. Set in an area rarely seen: Lapland, The Cuckoo (Kukushka), directed by Aleksandre Rogozhkin, is a touching Russian comedy about the failure to communicate. Its seamless mixture of earthy humor, anti-war sentiment, and otherworldly Lapp mysticism is enhanced by strong performances, especially from Anni-Kristina Juuso, who portrays a spunky but radiant young Reindeer farmer who has not seen a man in four years since her husband went to war and left her widowed.

Using his ingenuity and every resource at his command, Veiko manages to free himself after a protracted struggle that takes up a good half-hour of the film. Meanwhile, a few miles away, a Russian captain, Ivan (Viktor Bychkov) escapes while being taken by Soviet military police to be court-martialed for anti-Soviet sentiments. Circumstances bring all three together at a log outpost where Anni (Anni-Kristina Juuso) lives alone, sleeping in wooden tepees with log doorflaps. She gives them shelter and nurses them back to health but no one understands the other's language (the dialogue is in Finnish, Russian, and Saami, the language of Lapland). This leads to many confusing situations such as when Ivan tells them to "get lost" and they mistakenly think he is telling them that his name is Gerlost. Ivan wants to kill Veiko who tries to tell him that all he wants is peace, invoking the names of Tolstoy (War and Peace) and Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms).

In this Tower of Babel, the three can only reach each other through tone of voice, hand gestures, and body language, but Anni has no trouble convincing the men that she has "an aching below the tummy". Though Veiko is mistakenly thought to be a fascist since he still wears a German uniform, the three gradually form a bond based on mutual need and a common humanity. The Cuckoo is a gorgeously photographed and emotionally resonant film that is more than an anti-war fable; it is a film of transcendent beauty that directly touches the soul.