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The Cuckoo is an unusual name for a film. It could conjure the idea of a children’s film, nature film, or film on the mentally unstable. However, this Russian film gives us a story of three people, two men and a woman, who are trying to survive through the latter part of World War II. Director/Scriptwriter Alexander Rogozhkin has an eye for the unusual and also for beautiful Lapland of the far North. 

The film begins with a Finnish soldier, a trained sniper, being chained to a rock in the desolate Lapp area while dressed in a German uniform. He doesn’t want to fight anymore and this is his punishment, to either free himself or starve. While he is trying desperately to break the chains, he sees a plane attack the convoy and kill almost everyone. Eventually, to his surprise, along comes a woman who proceeds to bury the dead in a shallow grave and rescue the one other soldier who is alive. When the trio finally meets, they can’t understand each other’s languages, so subtitles give the audience an advantage. There are jovial misunderstandings as when one solder tells the other to "Get lost!" The other thinks that is the soldier’s name, so he begins calling him Gerlost. The men look for something to do. One decides to build a sauna while the other begins to fancy himself something of a cook. The woman, Anni, lost her husband four years ago and has survived on reindeer. She lives by the edge of a small lake and longs for romance in her life. From no man, suddenly she has two. How the three manage with language barriers, jealousy, and pride is the story of The Cuckoo (Anni’s nickname).

The photography of The Cuckoo is excellent and shows a harsh, rocky land in which reindeer provide the main sustenance: food, milk, and clothing. In this land close to the Arctic Circle, there is also mysticism. When one man is seriously wounded, Anni tries her grandmother's old method of bringing the near dead back to the living. This was better than any Twilight Zone episode. In searching the woods for food, the men come upon a downed Russian fighter plane that had two women pilots and the former sniper gets to give an anti-war speech, though the other man doesn't understand him. No one knows if the war has ended, whether Russia or Finland is still in the war, or if Germany lost or won. Are the men supposed to hate each other or not? In the meantime, Anni gives her little camp a semblance of home, though she is starting to fall for one of the men.

Within the beautiful Lapp landscape is a microcosm of life. It's almost as though these people were the last ones on earth. It is still human nature to believe the worst about someone first and then realize things may not be as they seem. This film shows us that despite war around the group, one level head prevails and that is the voice of The Cuckoo.
 

Copyright 2003 Marie Asner
Submitted 7/29/03