Burnt by the Sun (1995)

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Absolutely Fantastic

Absolutely brilliant

A Major Disappointment

Russia, 1936: revolutionary hero Colonel Kotov is spending an idyllic summer in his dacha with his young wife and six-year-old daughter Nadia and other assorted family and friends. Things change dramatically with the unheralded arrival of Cousin Dmitri from Moscow, who charms the women and little Nadia with his games and pianistic bravura.Russian history is strange, especially for Americans. Was the end of the monarchy a good thing? How about the rise of Lenin? Or the takeover from Stalin? Depending on who you believe, any of these three could be heroes or demons. This film is set during the rise of Stalin, still a few years off from World War II.How accurate it is, I do not know. But it seems like a nice time to be a Russian. Perhaps even better than today (2015). Or maybe just a good time to be an important military figure.

When an old friend shows up at a family in Russia in 1936, at the very beginning of the great terror of the people by the Communist regime, it costs them their happiness. Eventually. Really, almost all of this is just steeped in that glee. A solid hour of this passes with nothing at all happening. And not much does take place after that. I have no problem with character development, but this has far too many roles for us to remember even half of them, and it doesn't seem like it's important, other than to emphasize that they are, well, all there, and all in a good mood. And this has a lot of "noise", with singing, cheering and in general, you can hear something much of the time. This is filmed well, and the acting tends to be convincing. It shows what it was like back then, if it is a tad, well, covered in a sugary glaze considering what it's about. Charm? Sure. This does have occasional compelling imagery, as well. I suppose that this is like other movies from France, but I know that they can look straight in the eye of something negative, also, and I think it would have fit better to do so here, as well. There is sexuality, language and bloody, disturbing violence(mostly not shown) in this. I recommend this to, well, fans of this kind of thing. 7/10

I'd never actually seen an Academy Award Best Foreign Language winner until I saw this and my hopes were pretty high. I have to say I was a little disappointed. Firstly, the film was beautiful to watch. The locations really showed off the sheer beauty of Russia (I presume it was shot in Russia, and secondly the whole thing really did feel like a piece of art- carefully crafted and lovingly put together. I applaud the making of. However, the acting quality was inconsistent. Mikhalkov was very good at the lovable "uncle Jo" figure. Every moment he was on screen his presence felt commanding despite the kind jolly figure he played. I think that Oleg Menshikov stole the show. His portrayal of a bitter, vengeful man started off very subtle until he built it into something of a madman at the end, was brilliant. Mikhalkova was also wonderful to watch as the young girl, innocent and sweet, yet curious and smart. I do feel that some of the supporting cast were a little pointless, a few of them need not have been there perhaps, it added to the confusion of the film. Next, the story was really gripping, once it got going. I have no problem with a film starting slow and moving and a slow pace but this film of just over 2 hours felt like well over 2 and a half. I did thing the story was really interesting and once I got into it I really did feel the terror of Stalin's brutal regime. It was also an interesting film morally, I constantly felt myself drawn between the two main characters, not sure who to root for, which I felt was wrong because it was kind of obvious, I felt, who was supposed to be the villain. The ending also felt a little odd. With all of the build up that finally got going I felt that the ending was too underwhelming. I felt a little let down, I kind of got the message about Stalin but I felt that after all the build up it kind of didn't go anywhere. It was still a really good film and well worth watching for the performance of the leads and the scenery.

i remember seeing this incredibly strong, heartbreaking movie three times in three consecutive days. i couldn't get enough of the pure beauty of the scenery, the warmth of the characters, the pain you feel when you know what doom awaits them around the corner. i understand that for political or other issues many Russians don't like this movie, but i think it is a very honest, revelation story by Nikita Mikhalkov, who after this movie I came to respect as a genius artist. probably forever in my mind will live so many beautiful scenes from this movie: the burning, yet mild sun by the lake, the forgotten secrets of two ex-lovers, the infinite 'ruskoe pole', the happy people at the beach, living happily unsuspecting of the terror machine of the dictatorship 'for the people'outstanding movie, one of my forever favorites20/10