'The Cranes Are Flying'

A chillingly and hearbreakingly fantastic war movie. Arguably the best war movie I've ever seen.

Set in Moscow at the onset of World War II, it features our lovers, Veronica and Boris. Boris and his brother Mark are trained musicians. Mark receives an exemption from the war. Boris doesn't and is sent to the front in front of an oncoming Nazi army.

Later, during a bombing, Veronica's parents are killed and she's taken in by Boris' family and eventually "forced" to marry Mark after several coercions on his part.

Later, the family retreats to Siberia with no news of Boris' time in the war. We watch him eventually die in some woods.

One of my other favorite war movies is "A Very Long Engagement," set in France during World War I when young lovers, too, are torn apart without any real knowledge (or true, factual knowledge) of the man's whereabouts.

Although both films vary greatly, one of the best similarities, which is very subtle and awesome, is in both the females create these arbitrary scenarios where if an innocuous thing happens or if they can do a certain innocuous duty in a certain time, then they make deals in their own brain, with themselves somehow guaranteeing their lover's safety, at least in their own brain.

For example, Veronica, seeing the mail coming, stats that if she can count to 50, then she will get a letter.

In "A Very Long Engagment," Audrey Tautau's character makes several of these "deals" throughout. It's precious and just overly romantic.