Clear Skies

Probably the most daring Soviet movie from Khrushchev's "warming" period, directed by Grigori Chukhrai (whose son Pavel made the Oscar-nominated "The Thief.") Of course, such movie was possible only after Stalin's death when Khrushchev in 1956 denounced the "cult of personality" and all of Stalin's purges.

Yevgueni Urbansky acted masterfully as a soviet pilot who was shut down by anti-air nazi fire, caught alive and put in prison until the war finished. Once back home, hurt but alive, he was suspected of betrayal and collaboration with nazis with the only evidence of his survival.

Grigory Chukrai made the classic "Ballad of a Soldier" a few years earlier in black and white, and I was curious about how he would live up to that standard in a later film. It proved in colour but deals with the same subject - the war and its human consequences, but although the story is better in "Ballad of a Soldier", here it is more complicated and deeper.

"Clear Skies" is quite a remarkable film; it deals with a lot of uncomfortable realities of the era preceding it in a surprisingly and admirably frank way, while at the same time managing to fit within the state guidelines for expression of its era -- which were relaxed relative to Stalin's but still restrictive enough to force the filmmakers to be creative in obeying them. This makes for an affecting film in more ways that one.