Joseph Stalin's purges, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russians--including countless loyal Communist Party members--form the backdrop for BURNT BY THE SUN, which won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Set in 1936, it examines one fateful day in the life of aging war hero Colonel Serguei Petrovich Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov). The bear-like Kotov lives in the country dacha of his adoring and much younger wife Maroussia's (Ingeborga Dapkounaite) family, and wields considerable local power. Though a
staunch Communist party member, Kotov's loyalty is tempered by human decency and common sense. He doesn't hesitate to halt military maneuvers that threaten the village's crops, and his in-laws include elderly survivors of the old regime whose lack of familiarity with the lore and slogans of the
new Russia he treats with benign tolerance. Kotov also dotes on his small daughter, Nadia (Nadia Mikhalkov). The day is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Mitia (Oleg Menchikov), an old friend of the family. Slowly we learn the details of Mitia's past: He was Maroussia's fiance--she attempted
suicide after he disappeared--and studied music with her father. Kotov welcomes him, and Mitia joins the family for an idyllic day at the lake. Later, back at the house, Mitia blurts out a terrible secret to a drunken guest: He's working for Stalin's political police. Mitia then laughs off the
revelation as a joke, but a shot of a big, black Packard waiting on a country lane assures the viewer that it isn't
We learn that Mitia supported the White Russians in the Revolution of 1917, and that Kotov was instrumental in forcing him to leave Russia after the Bolsheviks took power--the lovable Kotov was not above using his political power to solve his personal problems. Kotov confronts Mitia in private,
and Mitia admits that he was an agent for the secret police in Paris and helped betray former Czarist generals. He has finally been allowed to return to Russia, but the price is Kotov's betrayal. Kotov realizes that he is doomed, and says his veiled farewells to Maroussia and Nadia, who have no
idea that they are spending their last hours with him. The Packard pulls up and Kotov climbs in. Nadia clamors to be allowed to ride with her father, who gently sends her back to her mother. After the car has pulled away, Kotov is brutally beaten and executed. Mitia returns home and commits
suicide. A printed epilogue informs us that Maroussia and Nadia were later arrested and imprisoned.
The title alludes to the "burning sun" of the Russian Revolution, and Mikhalov's film deals with a wide range of characters whose lives are damaged or destroyed by it. BURNT BY THE SUN is clearly a very personal project: He co-produced, played the lead and cast his own six-year-old daughter--a
first-time actress with astonishingly unforced charm--as Kotov's little girl. But it is not a subtle film, and ultimately has very little to say beyond that people do terrible things for petty reasons and life is awfully unfair.
BURNT BY THE SUN is deliberately slow moving, and the contrast between the languorous day of meals, boating at the lake and conversation with friends and relatives and the brutal suddenness with which Kotov is snatched away and murdered is chilling. The idyllic, lushly photographed setting
provides a bluntly ironic contrast to the vicious treachery committed by Mitia and, by extension, the Stalinist government that ruthlessly mowed down so many of its citizens in the name of progress and political expediency. Perhaps the most interesting thing about BURNT BY THE SUN is that Kotov is
a genuine hero of the Revolution, and his faith in communist ideals is never really undermined: The trouble with communism, Mikhalov implies, is communists like Stalin, who perverted the ideals of the Revolution to their own personal ends. (Adult situations, profanity, sexual situations, nudity,
violence.) leave a comment