Film Review: Fliers of the Open Skies (Letači velikog neba, 1977)

There are various ways filmmakers can present the horrors of war to the audience. One of the more effective, but trickiest to achieve, is to show the war from the perspective of little children. Fliers of the Open Skies, a 1977 Yugoslav war drama directed by Marijan Arahnić.

The plot is set in a small Croatian town during the first years of WW2. The protagonist is Ante (played by Ramiz Pašić), an orphaned boy whose life revolves around the pigeons he keeps in his improvised dovecote built by local youth Vito (played by Milan Štrljić). His life and that of the townsfolk changes with the arrival of an Italian army unit, whose commander (played by Raniero Brumini), nicknamed “Earthworm” by the local children, likes to shoot birds for sport. Italian soldiers occupy the town and requisition food and other supplies from the townsfolk who, faced with famine, begin to set traps for pigeons, viewing them as a source of food. Ante is forced to protect his beloved birds by keeping them locked in the dovecote. Some of the local youths join the resistance and one night manage to sabotage the Italian artillery position. They all escape unharmed except Vito, who is wounded and forced to hide. Ante shelters him and nurses him, but the lack of food and the deteriorating health of his friend forces him to make some difficult choices regarding his pigeons.

Some critics classify Fliers of the Open Sky as a Partisan film, part of a genre specific to post-WW2 Yugoslavia. However, this film could fit that definition only in very broad terms. Yugoslav Partisans never appear in the film and they aren’t even mentioned directly (except as “our boys fighting in the hills”), while the hoisting of a red flag as an act of defiance to Fascist occupiers is as close as this film comes to acknowledging the official Communist ideology. Croatian screenwriter Milan Grgić is more interested in more intimate yet more universal themes, and the idea of showing the occupation, hardships and difficult moral choices from the perspective of innocent children looked promising. It wasn’t executed that well. There is an obvious gap between the scenes featuring Ante and the other children and scenes featuring adults, especially those played by formidable character actors like Zvonko Lepetić and Boris Dvornik, whose serious dilemmas about whether to cooperate or resist could have provided much more interesting drama. On the other hand, there are some brilliant scenes, like the one in which an elderly man, played by Karlo Bulić, admits to his friends that he ate the pigeons he used to feed in better times. A good soundtrack by Alfi Kabiljo also elevates this film, and the direction by Marijan Arahnić is solid. But it all falls apart in the end with a finale that is rushed and somewhat too “artsy” and too “poetic”, obviously made in order to provide some sort of happy ending for younger viewers.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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