I love this movie so much

Don't Believe the Hype

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The 2002 Russian production KUKUSHKA ("The Cuckoo") is an entertaining tale of mutual understanding across language barriers on the Finland-Russian front in World War II. As the film begins Veikko (Ville Haapasalo), a recently drafted Finnish student who doesn't seen the point of fighting, is being chained to a rock. Punished for insubordination, he is forced to wear an SS uniform so he won't surrender, and given a gun to shot passing Russian troops. Only a couple of kilometers away Ivan (Viktor Bychkov), a Russian soldier who has just been arrested for the counter-revolutionary activity of writing poetry, is set free when his jailers perish in a bombing. Both of these condemned men are taken in by Anni (Anni-Kristiina Juuso), a Sami woman resident in the area, who holds on to her small farm four years after her husband disappeared.Each of these three characters cannot speak the language of the others, and Ivan initially hopes to kill Veikko, whom he believes to be a Nazi soldier. The misunderstandings that arise make for fine comedy, but the final reconciliation amongst the three characters is heartwarming. The cinematography really brings out the beauty of the land above the Arctic Circle, and the writers have represented the traditions of the Sami with care. Director Aleksandr Rogozhkin has expertly handled the actors and the action.The extras on some releases are quite entertaining, especially Juuso's bafflement at the suggestion that the Sami people are sex-obsessed.I watched this film as a student of Finno-Ugrian linguistics resident in Finland, passionate about the Finnish and Sami languages and with training in Russian as well. Audiences with different backgrounds might not care as much for the film, and you might find it a three-star effort instead of four. Nonetheless, I am sure you'll find KUKUSHKA an entertaining film.

Fascinating film this, in many ways.Slow to start, as the conscientious objector is nailed to a rock as bait following the ending of WW2 hostilities in Scandanavia. The director takes is through a sometimes quite painfully slow process as or young soldier fights a battle with a nail and chain. The scene when the chain gets released is a relief.The scenery, the close-ups, the human facial reactions throughout carry this film well. I can't understand why some friends of mine say they cannot watch subtitled films - here we have no choice - though non verbal communication or body language is clearly universal, even in adversity.My favourite scene: when the young soldier suffers from the Russian guys bullet. He drifts away into unconsciousness and is bought back the Saami woman's traditional trance like spell - the scene cuts to a young boy in white (angel of death) leading our character away, only to be pulled back to the present at the very end.As someone interested in people and communications this film is a classic - ends beautifully and the camera-work throughout is wonderful.Watch it a few times, be sure to catch the humour!

After struggling through the first 50 minutes, I got smart and Fast Forwarded it on 8x - and didn't miss a thing! Several pieces of the film are good to excellent - the acting, scenery, set, and production are the highlights. But, nothing can save it from the abysmal script - and the plot can be summarized in 3 sentences (which i won't do here). Watching this film is like watching 3 simultaneous uninteresting monologues. No one even pretends to know that they aren't being understood. I've been in situations involving extreme language barriers, and this isn't even remotely close to reality - or entertainment. By the end, I figured out that I'm 'cuckoo' for sitting and watching more than 15 minutes of this film (which would probably be more interesting without subtitles)!

Towards the end of the WW2 for Finland, sniper Veikko finds himself chained to a rock in the middle of the woods and left to die, still in a German uniform so that he won't be able to surrender. Meanwhile a former captain of the Soviet army is arrested by the police and being transported when his vehicle is attacked, leaving him wounded and the others dead. A local farmer girl living without her husband, Anni, finds Ivan and starts to nurse him back to health. When Veikko escapes his rock he ends up at the farm, looking to end his war there in peace but Ivan, assuming he is a Nazi soldier, wants him dead; meanwhile Anni just wants a man and cannot believe her luck at getting two in one go. The difficulties are not helped by none of them speaking the same language.This film opens very slowly and, by only half explaining the situations, I was engaged by them and kept watching to see where they were going. After about 15/20 minutes the film settled down into the main thrust of the film – the three characters together without a common language, misunderstanding one another and each trying to do their own thing. This section is consistently amusing while still maintaining enough dramatic interest in the characters to produce a story as well; although it must be said that it is the comedy rather than the story that stayed with me after watching it. This is because I didn't think much of the film's ending – nice enough but a bit strange and serious to suit the rest of the material; if it had been making a point then it would have been better but, as it was, I didn't get any of the "deep meaning" that some reviewers have claimed to have gleamed from it. The laughs come consistently though, producing quite a few good laughs while also producing a steady amusing delivery; the contradicting conversations sounds like a one-joke affair but in reality they work much better than it sounds.The cast do well considering them having to just discount the rest of the dialogue at times – an effect them not knowing the others' lines probably helped. Juuso is very pretty and plays it well with a light comic touch – although I did wonder at times whether an isolated farmer would be as feminine and easygoing as she was. Haapasalo is enjoyable as the peace-loving Finn and Bychkov matches his performance with a good portrayal of the man driven by hate but also tired of what he has seen and lived. The film is a bit unfair on his character and never really gives him a full redemption but Bychkov deals with it well enough to cover this up for the majority. Director Rogozhkin directs them well while also using the landscape well, making for a visually interesting film.Overall this is an enjoyable little film that provides plenty of laughs within an entertaining narrative. At the end of the day it may not have a great conclusion or produce much in the way of inner meaning but it does enough to do this with the laughs taking centre stage thanks to a well-written script and clever direction of the actors.