Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18982 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-07-15
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Russian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 135 minutes

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

From The New Yorker
Set in 1936, in the high summer of Stalinist rule, Nikita Mikhalkov's movie centers on a Soviet Army colonel (played by Mikhalkov) and the family group that circulates around him in an idyllic dacha. The idyll cracks when the state, in the person of a family friend (Oleg Menchikov), comes to wreak havoc; a work that began in the rustling spirit of Chekhov ends like a Scorsese picture, with thugs raining blows in the back of a car. What binds the mixture is Mikhalkov's love of all the stray details his camera catches; the movie may sound dispiriting, but it has an amazing ability to cheer you up. There is a full range of acting styles, from the florid to the cartoonish, and to the sharp-eyed, wholly uncute performance of the director's eight-year-old daughter, Nadia, who gazes at the unfolding events with the air of one who will never be able to banish them from her memory. In Russian. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Emotional Shock
I find a lot of reviews presented in this forum unsatisfactory. They either debate whether or not "Burnt by the Sun" deserved an Oscar or criticize the controversial figure of the film's director, Mikhalkov, his political stances, deficiencies, faults, etc. A few if any reviews talk about the emotional power of this picture, which affected me tremendously.

"Burnt by the Sun", or "Drained by the Sun" (a more accurate translation from Russian) has impressed me with its depth and subtle nuances in portraying people's inner psyche, their desires, fears, hopes and illusions. It is a very humane and cruel movie at the same time. It's hard if not impossible to choose sides, e.g. in the beginning I found myself sympathizing with Mitya, the antagonist, who was forced to leave his home, who lost the love of his life to Kotov but survived the horrors of wars, only to find out later for me that he is in fact just a merciless murderer and betrayer, burned out and empty as a carcass of the corpse, cynical enough to befriend and play with a six-year old daughter of his victim.

Starting with the opening scene, the movie grabbed my attention and never let go. A young, handsome man returns home to his apartment close to the heart of Soviet Russia - the Kremlin, exhausted, apathetic, and drained emotionally and physically. We presume that he is a big shot in a new Soviet government, for he has a big place all to himself and his French servant. He turns on the radio, doesn't answer the phone calls, pulls out his gun, and takes out all but one bullet. Classical Russian roulette. What is it that makes a man cross that line? Is it fear? Is it necessity? Is it the last escape before the path from which you cannot steer? Is it the last noble thing that you can do?....

The movie is "heavy" for an average viewer, and, yes, it is somewhat hard to keep track of all characters and developments in the beginning. You'll have to go trough lots of innuendos, hints, and subtlety. But the ultimate shock in the end is worth the wait. It will leave you thinking about what is good and bad and about the entire spectrum of morality in between. It will teach you what a human tragedy really is. And, hopefully, it will leave you some room for hope. Which is what every great movie should do, anyway.

WHAT "THE PIANIST" WAS TO POLAND, THIS IS TO RUSSIA.
This absolute poetry on camera, which bagged the 1995 best international film award, is a masterpiece I highly recommend you to watch.

Russians (or other followers of Stalin's times) may be a bit jaded by the theme of 30's USSR suffering. But for the rest of us, "Burnt by the Sun" glides effortlessly, seamlessly though the genres as it tells of a handful of Russian characters who collectively constitute a family of sorts with great humor and drama, poignant and sweetly sentimental moments, and excellence both technically and artistically.

What is more, the film's story is interesting, unpredictable, and well told with depth and neatly developed characters.

The reviewers who have lamented about the politics of the our time, the academy award and the bravura with which it was accepted etc. are making weirdly baseless comments. If you enjoyed Polanski's opus "Pianist", I guarantee you're in for a visual and sentimental treat with this one as well!

Under the Shadow of Stalin
Mikhalkov always had a flair for Chekhovian drama, and he doesn't disappoint the viewer in this movie, which essentially updates "The Cherry Orchard" to Stalinist Russia. What we get is a tumultuous day in the life of a theatre group in a tranquil rural community, lorded over by the proud Commander Kotov, as the small town prepares for the celebration of Stalin's first ride in an air balloon. Mikhalkov deftly mixes humor with pathos, the hallmark of all his movies, as the bucolic life is broken by the return of Mitya (impeccably played by Oleg Menshikov). We slowly get to learn of Mitya's mission with a profound sense of foreboding. The acting is purposely staged to give the scenes their rich theatrical air, yet there is a naturalism too, as Mikhalkov has such a fine eye for detail. To reveal too much of the movie is to give away its stunning climax. It was one of the first films to emerge from the post-Soviet era and gave Mikhalkov a broader international audience, earning him an Oscar in 1994.