Misplaced Pages

The Lark (1965 film)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
1965 Soviet war film

The Lark
Film poster
Directed byNikita Kurikhin
Leonid Menaker
Written byMikhail Dudin
Sergey Orlov
StarringGennadi Yukhtin
Valeri Pogoreltsev
Valentins Skulme
Bruno Oja
Ervin Abel
CinematographyViktor Karasyov
Nikolai Zhilin
Edited byRaisa Izakson
Music byYakov Vaisburd
Production
company		Lenfilm
Release date
  • 1 May 1965 (1965-05-01)
Running time91 minutes
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

The Lark (Russian: Жаворонок, romanized: Zhavoronok) is a 1965 Soviet World War II film directed by Nikita Kurikhin and Leonid Menaker. It was entered into the 1965 Cannes Film Festival.

It features a story of a T-34 battle tank and its crew who escape from German training ground after being used as a living target practice. The tank becomes the titular lark, roaming through the land, announces incoming end of the Nazi rule, like larks announce end of winter season.

The film is characteristic for its symbolism with scenes featuring destruction of a German monument in a heart of a city the tank enters, or symbolic destruction of the Wehrmacht when the tank accidentally crashes inside a cinema building and drives through the screen during a German propaganda movie display. The T-34 tank is a symbol itself, being portrayed like an unstoppable, almost god-like creature that inserts fear into occupants by destroying symbols of Nazi rule and enthusiasm into the Soviet captives witnessing its march. Even after its crew is killed, the tank continues its march, driving towards light of the sun.

Plot

The opening sequence states that the film is based on true events.

Set deep within Nazi Germany on June 22, 1942, the story follows the harrowing use of captured Soviet tanks by the Germans as live targets for testing their anti-tank weapons. These "death crews" are composed of Soviet prisoners of war and civilians from concentration camps. The film chronicles the escape of one such tank crew led by Ivan, a skilled mechanic and driver. The crew—consisting of three Red Army soldiers and a fighter from the French Resistance—breaks through enemy lines in a T-34 tank. Along the way, they rescue Soviet women forced into labor and destroy German forces. During their journey, they strike fear into a German town, disrupt its idyllic view of victory, raid supplies, and destroy a monument to a Teutonic knight.

As the crew fights through enemy territory, they suffer losses: the French fighter is killed by a bomb, and two other crew members die after leaving the tank during an attack. In a final act of defiance and humanity, Ivan saves a young German boy crossing the road but is shot dead by German forces moments later.

Cast

References

  1. Gershenson, Olga (15 July 2013). The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813561820. Retrieved 1 May 2019 – via Google Books.
  2. "Festival de Cannes: Zhavoronok". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 6 March 2009.

External links


Stub icon

This article related to a Soviet film of the 1960s is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Stub icon

This article about a drama film on World War II is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories: