In the Crosswind (2014) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Zeke ★★★★

  The immense agony of trauma depicted through the freezing of time by way of tableaux vivants, Martti Helde's In The Crosswind is heart-wrenching in its subtle impact within the singularity of experience. Relying on experimental mise-en-scène and intricate camerawork, with voiceovers based on the real-life letters of his ancestors, Helde approaches the little-discussed tragedy of the Soviet deportation with attentive restraint. Beautifully poignant in both thought and execution.

• Review by Sol ★★★★

  In the Crosswind (Risttuules) is an Estonian drama film directed by Martti Helde. It is based on a real life diary of a survivor.

  Erna Tamm enjoys her beautiful home life with her husband and daughter. Then, on June 14, 1941, during Stalin's cleansing of the Baltic, Russian troops show up, forcing the entire neighborhood out of their houses, trucks, and finally vans for the journey to northern Siberia. As part of the process, before loading them into the carts, they separate the men from the women and prepare the children for transportation.

  The long journey to reach Siberia is only a small part of what Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians will suffer. Women and children face all kinds of abuse;…

• Review by Luke McCarthy 5

  MIFF 2015
  Film #10

  The horror and pain of Estonia's silent holocaust painstakingly transcribed onto celluloid.
  Helde's camera calmly pans throughout each perfectly composed tableaux with tender clarity - these people are trapped within history, unable to escape from a black-and-white memory of which nobody can change.
  By rendering these moments in time as gorgeous, three dimensional stills, we get to observe the terror and senselessness of each and every second with painstaking detail. This is humanistic cinema, giving the beaten and abused the cinematic memorial they deserve. Singular and important - see this as soon as possible.

• Review by V. Lepistö ★★★★

  "In Siberia, time doesn't move."

  Estonia fires! Film on Stalin's Soviet holocaust where thousands of Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians were taken away from their homes and only rare returned. It's easy to put it among the other great films from young and innovative directors, Miguel Gomes' Tabu and Raya Martin's Autohystoria or Independencia. I don't want to seriously spoil anything but it will surprise most of its viewers not only because of its cinematic methods but because of its heart. Director has truly wanted to understand and open about one of the biggest traumas of his people.

  The subject is dark, considering Helde's young age and despite not being able to really tell because he hasn't personally been through that,…

• Review by Adriana Scarpin ★★★★

  É um belo filme com extraordinário uso de tableaux vivants, mas fiquei pensando se ele não teria sido mais efetivo numa duração menor, como curta longo ou média metragem, assim talvez tivesse mais a ver com o tempo estático, o tempo congelado e não tão expandido de um longa curto.
  Na Mubi.

• Review by ciel ★★★★

  ...But my heart won't let me lie to you,
  Don't wait for me to come back.
  When this letter finds you,
  follow our relatives to the West.
  You can probably still get away
  by train.
  And one day we'll meet again!
  Then come from the west
  as a fresh, free wind.
  And I'll come from here
  as the easy wind.
  And we'll meet in the crosswind.
  We'll meet where the winds meet,
  by our apple tree
  under the wing of the Creator.
  With love,
  Heldur.

• Review by Kai White ★★★★

  March Around The World 2022
  Country: Estonia (12/30)

  Oh, come on, now. Almost an entire movie of tableaux vivants? Who does this?!?

  My art nerd heart is a-flutter. This is such beautiful, beautiful work. For most of the film, the performers don’t move, almost as if they are mimes, while the camera moves in between them. It’s just like walking through still photographs, and it is gorgeous. Shot in a stunning black and white, writer-director Martti Helde uses this technique to not only capture the main character’s memories as if they are frozen in time, but also manages to analyze what memories look like at all. What defines the nature of memory? Why do they look the way they do…

• Review by Iqbal Riz ★★★½

  The next level camera movement yang dipadukan dengan sempurnanya long-shot yang indah berhasil memberi gambaran mengerikan terhadap kehorroran perang dari sudut pandang seorang wanita Estonia atas pembantaian (Holocaust) yang dilakukan Soviet kepada banyak pria dewasa dari Estonia, Lithuania, dan Latvia.

  Pertama kalinya nonton film yang menggunakan teknik 'mannequin challenge'. Tanpa banyak gerak-gerik dan dialog, tapi tetap tidak mengurangi nuansa sedih dan ngeri dari ironi yang terjadi saat itu.

• Review by Julian ★★★

  I'm not a big fan of comparing one thing to another, let alone multiple other films, but I couldn't help but think of Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood, Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad and Terrence Malick's filmography when watching this..

  In the Crosswind mostly consists of tableau vivants with an occasional voice-over, something that I've only seen in Last Year at Marienbad so far, and that was only briefly. I never expected a film with this style to be this powerful, but turns out director Martti Helde actually found the perfect way to tell this -sadly filled with anti-communist propaganda- story.

  during the course of +/- 80 minutes, we're only shown moving still portraits of the emotions Erna went through, guided by the voice of Erna. Those portraits turn out to be even more effective and emotionally loaded than the conventional way of cinematic storytelling.

  Incredible cinematography and directing. What a debut!

• Review by Michael Scott ★★★½

  I walked out of Martti Helde's beautifully conceived epistolary review of Stalin's ethnic cleansing of the Baltics feeling as if I should have been walking out of a video installation at a war memorial.

  In the Crosswind (Risttuules) enforces a dignified distance from its subject that hampers emotional connection and holds horror at bay. In this, Helde's approach mirrors Spielberg's similarly distancing Holocaust film; this is not an entertainment or emotional catharsis - this is an historical document.

  Only here it is actually an historical document in that its events are drawn from first hand letters. The writer, a young mother named Erna (played here with enormous backbone by Laura Peterson), was separated from her husband in 1941 and forced…

• Review by meriem0 ★★★★★

  The voice narration besides that frozen in time technique made each scene looks like a living painting so beautiful and heartbreaking...
  A lovely visual experience filled with feelings.
  a Must watch piece

• Review by Mahdi Bilad ★★★★

  الحرب هي من رسمت طريق فراقنا ورمت بنا في متاهة الشوق، فلا خلود يطفئ فواجع الفقد والفراق، ومن شذة الشوق اصبحت أبحث عن النوم في غير أوقاته لعل اللقاء يكون في المنام.
  كاميرا تتحرك ببطئ تعرض ألبوم صور وجوه صامتة وصوت سيدة يحكي رسائل موجهة لزوجها الذي فرقته عنها الحرب وموسيقى ساحرة تعرض في الخلفية هذا ما احتاجه المخرج الشاب مارثى هيلد ليخرج لنا تحفة إلى النور.
  في واجهة الرياح فيلم قادم من أوربا الشمالية وانتاج مشترك بين ايستونيا وليتوانيا تناول موضوع ترحيل يونيو لسكان ايستونيا وليتوانيا نحو سيبيريا بطريقة مختلفة تماما وإخراج رااائع.