Larisa Shepitko | Крылья (Kryl'ya) (Wings) / 1966

flying off

by Douglas Messerli

 

Valentin Yezhov and Natalya Ryazantseva (screenplay), Larisa Shepitko (director) Крылья (Kryl'ya) (Wings) / 1966

 

World War II Soviet fight pilot Nadezhda (“Nadia”) Petrukhina (Maya Bulgakova), now 41, heads a frustrating life in the post-war Soviet bureaucracy. Although she is awarded for her job as at a principal at a trade school. Some of her students do not appreciate her leadership, and one in particular claims he detests her. Few of the and even her own adopted daughter comprehend the sacrifices that she and others of her war generation have made for the county and see as still necessary.

     If Nadia is well-known as a wartime hero, many nonetheless mock her continued commitment to Soviet society, her involvement on numerous committees, and her other cultural activities. Her daughter Tanya, recently married, did not even bother to consult with her mother before the wedding, and Nadia only meets the groom long after the ceremony. She does not approve.

     Ukrainian-born director Larisa Shepitka gradually reveals Nadia’s pain of being trapped in the stultifying system—as critic Adam Bingham has noted—by both looking at her character and her actions and by following her gaze and witnessing her inner thoughts, spectacularly conveyed from time to time throughout the film by her memories of flying, diving, and rolling through the skies. If she has previously made great sacrifices, her life was at least exciting and meaningful, whereas her current dedication is not only unappreciated but merely reiterates the drab world of the Soviet 1960s.

     Although this movie does not openly suggest that Nadia may now be lesbian, it certainly hints at it in the vision of her short, cropped hair and her standard attire of a striped suit and coat, making her look rather mannish. And at one particular occasion as she pours out her soul to a local female bartender, over a beer, after she has been refused in a restaurant without a male companion, makes clear Nadia’s comfort with those of her own gender. As the two commiserate, she reveals that she used to sing. As Brian Eggart in Deep Focus observes, “…the two women, lost in the moment, begin to dance as Nadia unleashes her voice. It’s a rare scene of bliss. All at once, she realizes that a group of male onlookers has gathered outside, and the two women halt their brief escape.”

     These women live in a patriarchal world that is most certainly not comfortable with two women fully expressing themselves particularly in what might be perceived as a lesbian manner.

      The student who most detests her is also visiting the bar.

     It is not that Nadia, moreover, has not had her days of heterosexual passion. Once in love with a fellow flier Mitya, she saw his plane about to crash and sweeping down toward attempted to awaken him without success. Actress Bulgakova shows us without the script having her say it, that her character is hurt by the contemporary world which seems to have lost the high ideals of her generation. While she was once the equal of the men with whom she fellow, in this new world she is not even permitted to enter a restaurant without a male at her side.

     What is quite amazing is how the young Shepitko, in her first feature film after graduation from Russia’s State Institute for cinematography, so wonderfully perceives the generational struggles and the disappointment of the course her countrymen and country have taken. Without specifically criticizing Soviet authoritarianism, Shepitko, time and again, makes it clear that things are falling apart and that its citizens have basically given up on their ideals. Nadia’s sexless friendship with a local museum director almost parallels he daughter’s Tanya’s seemingly loveless relationship with her new husband. And the hostility of her young student who is beaten by his father at home, symbolizes a generation that is tired of having to look up to the heroes of the past, which Nadezhda herself represents. It is not truly she who he detests, but all of those seemingly promised a world that never come.

    Every now and then, simply to retrace her life, Nadia returns to the local airfield, where the young pilots all greet her, recognizing her as a former flier. In Wing’s last scene she watches as a couple of small planes take to the air. Another small plane remains on the tarmac, and, when the men’s attention has been directed elsewhere, Nadia clumsily climbs into the pilot’s seat.

    When the workers see her, they jokingly applaud her, and, as they move the plane into the hanger, tell her they will take her on a flight. In fact, as she surely recognizes, they are gently mocking her since it is only a land-based voyage. But as the plane nears the hanger, the engine suddenly comes to life, and the plane turns back to runway and takes off, the other pilots and workers chasing after it. Nadia has found her wings again.

 

Los Angeles, May 17, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 17, 2026).