Beyond bravado and bombast

A war is brewing, and uncertainty looms over the world. It drives us to appreciate what we have and who we love. Films have always been at the forefront of documenting daunting memories of massacre and love amidst war-borne heartaches through strong musical themes and unique visual poetry.

In ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ (1957), Georgian filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov and the prolific Soviet cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky master an adventurous visual technique. Viewers become vulnerable pawns amidst a world of human beings, geometric compositions, and partially lit artefacts. Set against the backdrop of World War II, the film opens with a young, love-struck couple prancing like synchronised grasshoppers along the riverbank, pausing to look at a flock of cranes flying in the sky. A radiant Veronica (played by Tatiana Samoilova) is hopeful of a promising future with the tender-eyed Boris (Aleksey Batalov). In the following scene, Boris follows her home. He runs behind her, up a staircase, inside a multi-storeyed building, while trying to avoid prying eyes. A precisely calculated helical-revolving shot gives us a sensation of gliding smoothly up along the railings over many floors in a hypnotic, boomerang-like trajectory. We experience the point of view of an agile crane, flying between the young lovers into a spiral of upward hope.

War’s harshest venom is uncertainty. When the Germans invade Soviet territory, Boris volunteers to join the army, putting Veronica’s dreams of a happily married life on hold. When it is time for Boris to leave, Veronica fails to reach him in time to say goodbye. In the long take, Veronica pops her head in and out of the bus twice, gets down, and frantically makes her way through the crowd-filled streets, searching for Boris before vanishing between two moving war tanks. The camera lurks next to her, then floats behind her, and she eventually grows smaller in the frame. The handheld aesthetic invokes a strong participatory effect. The focal change, from close-up to wide, captures Veronica’s frailty and overwhelming devotion viscerally. The camera movements mimic the emotional temperature of the film, from euphoric love to longing, to tension, to misery, and eventually, acceptance.

Kalatozov’s mastery lies in achieving the experience of widescreen cinema within the 35 mm monochrome format. Cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky develops a way of tracing character growth through varied use of lighting. The shadows on the characters’ faces signal residues of virtues muted by war. Characters who absorb collective angst and defy fear become totems for a radically humanist outlook in times of helplessness.

Visual aesthetics, aural cues and succinct writing can determine whether cinematic moments can transcend the screen and make their way into our dreams, informing our moral compass. 

In David Lean’s ‘Doctor Zhivago’ (1965), the protagonist Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) is a sensitive poet-physician who is convinced that art and love can help humanity survive the war. Through ‘Lara’s Theme’, composed by Maurice Jarre, Lean underlines Yuri’s longing for his beloved and the harsh precariousness that war brings. In Bahman Ghobadi’s ‘Turtles Can Fly’ (2004), the adolescent Kak Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) helps dismantle land mines with the help of other children. He carries a weathered compassion in his eyes in a war-torn landscape. 

Documentary-style realism can further heighten our immersion, bringing forth a spiritual lightness in humans that arises when all is lost, more than enacted pain. In Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘And Life Goes On’ (1992), set in the aftermath of the 1990 Manjil-Rudbar earthquake, a filmmaker (Farhad Kheradmand) travels through the region in search of a child actor. His son, who is accompanying him, absorbs the broken landscape curiously while Farhad drives with a cool nod, damp smile and a contemplative gaze. When asked about the loss caused by the earthquake, a passerby remarks that their main concern is to fix the satellite to be able to telecast the FIFA World Cup match in their makeshift camp. The film is based on Kiarostami’s search for the stars of his previous film, ‘Where Is the Friend’s Home?’.

Technically superior war films portraying unjustified violence to foster short bursts of adrenaline in an audience can confuse the moral compass of a society. ‘How can technique or form be divorced from content?’, says film scholar Ira Bhaskar in a recent interview. What is portrayed equally matters as to how it is portrayed. ‘Ikkis’ (2026), directed by Sriram Raghavan, is an important example of keeping human relationships central to the main narrative in the war biopic genre. 

Seeking audience attention should not come at the cost of gratuitous violence or propaganda that furthers the divide between communities. Instead, war films must seek to question the intention of war and liberate viewers through deeply human narratives. 

(The author is a musician and educator based in Mumbai)