Burnt by the Sun

Starring:Nino Abuladze, T. Akopova, Ion Aksenti, Nina Arkhipova, Vladimir Belousov (II), Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Vladimir Ilyin, Alla A. Kazanskaya, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Avangard Leontyev, Oleg Menshikov, Nadezhda Mikhalkova, Yevgeni Mironov, AndrÃ© Oumansky, Aleksei Pokatilov, Lyubov Rudneva, Vladimir Ryabov, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Inna Ulyanova
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov is also the star of this tragic 1994 drama about the last happy season in the life of a Bolshevik hero's family. The year is 1936, and Stalin's purges are in full swing. Despite his reputation and revolutionary record, Sergei Kotov (Mikhalkov) seems to be on the dictator's hit list, as indicated by the insulting arrival of his wife's former lover, an agent of government police. Mikhalkov treats all this as a matter of personal and political intrigue dropping like rotting fruit in the middle of a sunny and loving period for the Kotov clan. The director ingeniously understates the mounting threat until one begins to realize that the Kotovs are only geographically distant from the long, bloody reach of Stalin. By the time we do realize it, the shock of change is almost unbearable. A very fine movie all around, though Mikhalkov's touches of magic realism (particularly the presence of a golden orb that keeps popping into the action) are distracting and a subject of controversy among viewers. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

A Great Tragic Masterpiece by Mikhalkov.......2007-05-20

Stalin....was there anyone in the Soviet Union, during the 30's, who's life was not ruined or touched by tragic events, to some degree, in his relentless cleansings and purges? I seriously doubt it. Here we have a truly great film masterpiece by Nikita Mikhalkov...that of General Serfei Kotov, a great hero of the revolution. He has always tried to live like and ideolize himself as a true upstanding communist and respected revolutionary war hero. He is with his family at his dacha, where other guests are present, vacationing, also. However, his bucholic lakeside "visit" moves from one of restful bliss to sheer and utter terror as he realizes he has become another victim of Stalin's supreme spying league. Interwoven are other details and bits of the lives of other characters. Absolutely one of the most beautifully filmed movies ever committed to film (think of the photography of "Days of Heaven")... just breathtaking to look at. The nature of the story makes it somewhat hard to discuss, in review here, without giving away more than one should, and I do not intend to make this review a "Spoiler". Just trust me, it's a "keeper". (I love this film so much, that I replaced my VHS tape with Laserdisc, and then my Laserdisc with the DVD release...if it wasn't really great, believe me, I would not have kept upgrading a copy of it.)

......Another little nudge here would be "Kolya"....get it and watch it, also! It's wonderful.

Scott Hoerle.......2007-05-13

This film offers a nuanced view of Stalin's purges during the 1930s. It tells of Colonel Kotov, a hero from the civil war who is absolutely dedicated to building the Soviet State. Even this good Communist is not immune to the terror, however. A mysterious guest arrives, the uncertainty of Kotov's world unravels, and political realities close in. The film provides an excellent glimpse of the USSR during the period before World War II.

Excellent movie, but tragic ending.......2007-02-13

This is an excellent movie, but sad at the end.

Nikita Mikhalkov's best .......2006-12-21

The movie portrays the dual life in Soviet Russia under Stalin in the mid 30s. The beginning is a story of what Soviet life should have been like; the end is a chilling revelation of the reality. Nikita Mikhalkov plays General Sergei Kotov, a hero of the revolution who is holidaying in his dacha with his family and whose naïve love for the Soviet motherland is rewarded in the same fashion that Stalin rewarded most of the genuine revolutionary communists. But this is not the only story; there are many other little stories that portray the lives of people trapped between the past and the present, between lies and truths, between illusions and realities. Oleg Menshikov is extraordinary in this sense. He plays Mitya, a NVKD agent and an old friend of Kotov's wife, whose ruthlessness is the product of the Soviet spying apparatus, but who has also managed to preserve something noble in his personality from his tranquil past. The movie has a deeply sad finale - like the lives of everyone who lived under Stalin.

it left me rooting for stalin.......2006-09-06

a tired bit of revisionist propaganda out of post-soviet russia which somehow won an oscar as best foreign film. its fascinating that something so heavy handed can pretend to be an answer to the vile excesses of the stalin era, but what can one expect? there is (at least one) great movie to be made about that era; dont look for it here.

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