Air Crew | |
---|---|
International poster from 1980
|
|
Directed by | Alexander Mitta |
Produced by | Mosfilm |
Written by |
Yuli Dunsky Valeri Frid Alexander Mitta Boris Urinovsky |
Starring |
Georgiy Zhzhonov Leonid Filatov Aleksandra Yakovleva Yekaterina Vasilyeva Anatoly Vasilyev |
Music by | Alfred Schnittke |
Cinematography | Valeri Shuvalov |
Edited by | Nadezhda Veselyovskaya |
Production
company |
|
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
143 minutes |
Country | Soviet Union |
Language | Russian |
Air Crew (Russian: Экипаж, translit. Ekipazh) is a 1980 disaster film directed by Alexander Mitta. Inspired by the Airport movie series, it was the first catastrophe movie shot in the Soviet Union.
The first part of the film concentrates on the personal lives of the air crew, including their problems and relationships. For family reasons, one of the pilots has had to give up a promising career for a much less ambitious one. Despite this, his wife senses that he is not happy, which makes her a conflicted and angry spouse. Though both the parents love their son, it is not enough to prevent them from divorcing. Subsequently, the pilot resumes his career piloting the large passenger planes he had been hankering after. One of his pilot colleagues does not believe in family at all — his flat is full of impressive self-constructed light effects and son et lumière equipment that he uses to impress the parade of women he has one-night stands with.
The action-filled second half of the film sees the Tu-154 Aeroflot airplane landing in the fictional foreign town of Bidri, which appears to be located somewhere in the mountain region of the Asia. Soon after, an earthquake destroys the city, and the damaged runway is no longer suitable for normal take-offs (another plane — a Boeing — is shown crashing in the attempt). Still, there is no alternative to escaping by air, because the airport will soon be buried by an approaching mudflow. The experienced senior officer decides to take advantage of the fact that the airport was built on a mountain, so the plane will be able to descend rather than ascend as soon as it leaves the runway. Despite the "not ready for flight" warning lighting up on the dashboard, the plane successfully takes off at the last moment. The captain had first insisted on going through a speedy but complete take-off protocol, involving a check of the aircraft in accordance with the prescribed rules — perhaps in order to calm the crew by having them perform their normal tasks.