The Crazy Bird

There was an enormously long shot of a bird. We were asked to ponder that for a while. I think maybe it was to just reinforce the crazy, bewildering mood of the forest.

I know that it was said in fairytales that babies were carried/delivered to houses by storks. And after thinking about it for a while, I thought that the stork could be represented as childhood. The stork was shown after Florya had build the hut to stay in. The stork could mean that his childhood is trying to catch back up to him.

I may just be looking too far into it, but I feel the stork is more than just to add to the craziness.
I like Melanie's suggestion that the stork relates to childhood. I went off and looked up storks (Mr. Hart said we can't find the film, but I find nothing wrong with researching some birds), and it is rather interesting what one finds. From my little research, I found that the stork is apparently widely considered a bird of springtime, beginning, and rebirth. This alone relates to childhood somewhat, but there was something I, personally, found more interesting: In many cultures and possibly even religions (the website I found claimed it in the Bible, but I've yet to find the verse so shall not fully credit that), storks are very well known for being very protective of their young. It is said that a mother stork will near always stay with her nest and young under any and every circumstance, often dying in attempts to protect them. Additionally, when storks do have to flee their nests, they always return, even if the area has been completely devastated(Perhaps like how Flor returned to his own home, despite it being empty and 'abandoned'?). I'm still mulling over the idea of this devotion of storks, but I thought it could be fun to mention. Maybe someone else can come up with something from this tidbit. Or maybe I am looking too far into a crazy bird.
Ooh, also: storks are the national bird of Belarus. This seemed important until I recalled that this movie was made 6 years before Belarus became its own country to have an official national bird, but it's still fun to know.

These posts blew my mind. Just these posts alone made the creation of this website worthwhile. By the way, of course it is legal to google anything you think of. I'm trying to figure out this movie myself. One of the cool things is that this movie hasn't been analyzed to death like most american movies. Right now, we are very literally contributing everything there is on the internet about this film. We're paving our own roads.

Going with what Michelle posted about how storks are extremely protective of their young... maybe the stork symbolizes innocence. Florya's childhood innocence I feel like is slowly disintegrating as he's becoming more exposed to the dangers and realities of war, and then suddenly this stork appears in the forest, perhaps showing that innocence wants to stay near Florya and not leave yet. As a mother stork is willing to die to protect her young, the stork walking around could show how innocence may be hanging by a thread from Florya, but it's still hanging around him, trying to protect him from becoming completely exposed to the brutality of the war. That made more sense in my mind, but hopefully it's not completely confusing. I guess this post could go in the "Innocence Lost" forum as well.