Wings

Nadezhda Petrukhina flew fighters in the war, became a hero, and now runs a vocational school. She understands authority and does not understand peace. Her students do not know what to make of her, her adopted daughter is pulling away, and she keeps looking for a route back to the life she lost twenty years ago. Larisa Shepitko directs. Maya Bulgakova plays Nadezhda. At the centre is an unusual figure: a woman who was a war hero and has no place in peacetime. Soviet war narrative is normally built on sacrifice and victory; Shepitko asks what it cost and finds loneliness. The film stays largely in the present. The flying scenes are brief and come as memory. Everything else is school corridors, a restaurant, a canteen and an empty flat. Shepitko made this before she was thirty. She died in a car crash in 1979 at forty one, leaving only four features. The Ascent is the best known, but Wings is the first clear statement of her manner. Who it is for: viewers curious about Soviet cinema and about postwar narratives made by women directors. Who it is not for: the film is quiet and turned inward. If you want events, almost nothing happens.