Mosfilm: Air Crew (1979) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Mosfilm

Soviet writer-director-actor Alexander Mitta got his start in film directing with the 1961 drama film My Friend Kolka before making his acting debut in Marlen Khutsiev’s 1967 Khrushchev Thaw epic July Rain, working in and out of numerous jobs including a magazine cartoonist at one point.  A dramatist who often depicts the plight of ordinary citizens caught up in interpersonal and/or world event battles such as his 1970 dramedy Shine, Shine, My Star, Mitta maintained a steady workflow throughout the decade.  However, his output slowed down considerably to make room for an expensive super production that ultimately became the Soviet Union’s first real Irwin Allen inspired disaster epic with 1979’s Air Crew or The Crew depending on the translation.  An expansive two-parter running almost two-and-a-half-hours divided conceptually and stylistically, the film became a major box office hit within the Union and arrives on the heels of the equally harrowing (if not more) Mikhail Kalatozov epic The Red Tent in terms of dramatizing the human will to overcome natural or manmade disasters.  It’s also a rather down-to-earth testament to heroism and how it often goes unnoticed or unrewarded in the court of public opinion.
 
In the first portion of the film, in time honored Irwin Allen fashion, we spend nearly an hour focused on the interpersonal lives of the airplane flight crew.  Primarily trained on their problems with relationships, the ensemble piece largely divided between three key pilots: playboy womanizer Igor (Leonid Filatov), beleaguered Valentin (Anatoly Vasilyev) coping with his spiteful wife Alevtina (Irina Akulova) and his stuttering sun Alik (Roman Monin), and headstrong flight crew commander Timchenko (Georgiy Zhzhonov).  Cross-cutting between the three, we’re immersed in their disparate lives with Igor and his swanky multicolored disco flat trying to woo women while Valentin’s relations with his wife Alevtina disintegrate including a painful divorce where a new boorish husband fills in the gap and little Alik is told to refer to his biological father as ‘uncle’ now.  The film also pays keen attention to flight stewardess Tamara (Aleksandra Yakovleva) whose wishes to marry Igor are complicated by the return of one of his old flings as well as the increasing toxicity of Alevtina towards Valentin simply trying to spend time with his son.  Despite the pedigree of their professions and the amount of people looking up to them, none of their lives are necessarily made up of wine and roses.

 
An hour in in the second half is when Air Crew really starts to come alive and live up to its aspirations as a ginormous disaster epic as the crew of the Tu-154 Aeroflot airplane lands on the fictional Asian mountain oil town of Bidri on a rescue operation following a devastating earthquake.  However upon landing to evacuate the remaining survivors, an aftershock strikes destroying the airport and remaining aircraft still on site.  As mudflows and eventually oil and gasoline pour down the mountain towards the terrified survivors with the explosion damaging the tail and denting a hole in the aircraft, it immediately becomes a life-or-death survival situation with the three pilots Timchenko, Igor and Valentin tasked with going out on a limb to ensure their safe return back home.  With a crack in the fuselage and hull, against freezing temperatures and low oxygen levels running out, mid-flight the three do everything from climbing onto the wings with a harness and suffering debilitating frostbite to keep the battered aircraft from flying apart into pieces. 

 
The brainchild of Alexander Mitta who approached screenwriters Yuli Dunsky and Valery Frid with the idea of making an answer to the then-popular Hollywood disaster Airport film series which still remained unseen in the USSR up to that time, Air Crew (originally titled Margin of Strength) is an action-effects extravaganza full of miniatures and wild pyrotechnic effects work.  Largely filmed on sets with mock-ups and models interspersed with real aircraft, many of which are now displayed in the Krivoy Rog Aviation Museum, the film is also comprised of nerve-wracking stunts which only intensify as the plane hastily nears its safety destination.   With its arresting flame covered sets by Goryanka production designer Anatoliy Kuznetsov, lensed beautifully by The Twelve Chairs cinematographer Valeriy Shuvalov and rousing score by The Ascent composer Alfred Schnittke, Air Crew though at times flirting with our suspension of disbelief nevertheless is a supremely well-made disaster effort.

 
Of course the action survivalism wouldn’t land were it not for the dedicated and impassioned performances from the ensemble cast who are tasked with making the lives of the film’s heroes miserable.  Undoubtedly the one who has the heaviest dramatic weight to carry is Boris Godunov star Anatoly Vasilyev as the thoroughly browbeaten and belittled Valentin.  Up against an increasingly vindictive Irina Akulova as the angry wife who takes out her frustrations with Valentin on their child Alik, spat on and denigrated, Valentin is treated like a human pin cushion and his scenes leading up to the impending disaster are rather heartbreaking if not painful.  Karen Shakhnazarov fans will remember Leonid Filatov as the bewildered hero of Zerograd and here is a cocky cool ladies’ man replete with his hilarious disco light setup and sexy aquarium.  And the legendary Georgiy Zhzhonov of Beware of the Car is the anchor and compass holding the crew together and his presence lends a measure of seniority to the ensemble cast. 

 
Despite behind-the-scenes grievances from Leonid Brezhnev whose health was failing at the time and didn’t like the bleak tone and insisted on a less overtly somber interpretive coda, Air Crew while implausible at times nevertheless became a major box office hit in the Soviet Union.  One of the first Soviet films to feature minor onscreen nudity (albeit after heavy censorship passes of course), it ranked in sixth place in 1980 with over 71 million ticket sales at the Soviet box office.  Going on to win several awards in the Eastern Bloc, Air Crew was eventually nominated by the Chicago International Film Festival for the Golden Hugo Award for Best Feature.  Incidentally director Nikolai Lebedev who has a bit part in the film, decades later in 2016 made a remake of the film with Danila Kozlovsky and further went on to become the highest grossing film of that year.  Still, the original 1979 film is always going to hold a special place in the hearts of world cinephiles as a full-blown response to the disaster cinema of Irwin Allen in a survival thriller that doesn’t let the audience or the characters off the hook.  Again despite some of the aforementioned suspension of disbelief, something you had to do whenever taking on an Irwin Allen flick, Air Crew stays with you in an arena of airplane disaster flicks well after the end credits have finished unspooling.

--Andrew Kotwicki