The Cuckoo

In rural Lapland, circa 1944, three political enemies and cultural strangers come together just as World War II is winding down: a Finnish sniper branded a coward and abandoned by his fellow soldiers; a Russian captain, the only survivor of a road accident en route to his own court-martial; and a Lapp war widow trying to keep her farm afloat. In Alexandr Rogozhkin's gentle, often funny, always human film about loneliness and unexpected companionship, the trio (with no common language between them) develop a three-way relationship with no communication but the nonverbal: the tenderness in caring for a wound, the hard labor of running a farm, the no-words-needed language of sex and sexual rejection. "Four years without a man and then two at once," Anni (Anni-Christina Juuso) wonders with a laugh. Lyrically visual and stingingly ironic, The Cuckoo is a wonderful film about finding a kind of peace far from the battlefield but not far from the war. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a “making-of” featurette. Bottom line: a small extras package for a small, but winning film.] (M. Johanson)