Movies - Burnt by the Sun

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	Movies - Burnt by the Sun

Burnt by the Sun (original name Утомлённые солнцем, Utomlyonnye solntsem) is a 1994 film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. The film received the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, among many other honours.

The film is set in the mid-1930s, just before the Great Purge, when millions of people in the USSR were repressed and branded enemies of the people under a campaign unleashed by the Stalin regime. Colonel Sergei Kotov (played by Nikita Mikhalkov), a military hero of the Bolshevik revolution, is enjoying the sweet life in his dacha or country house, together with his captivating young wife Maroussia, played by Ingeborga Dapkounaite (in Lithuanian Dapkūnaitė), their six-year-old daughter Nadia and numerous family members and friends. Kotov, relaxed and filled with humour in his semi-retirement, is held in awe by those who surround him. He is also very patriotic and dedicated to the Soviet cause; in addition to having a photograph of him with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Kotov, while boating with his daughter, remarks that the rise of Soviet power will mean the end of fleeing.

Into this idyllic setting enters Dimitri, played by Oleg Menshikov, a young man who was Maroussia's lover a decade ago, before leaving under mysterious circumstances. Dimitri now works for Stalin's secret police, the NKVD, and it becomes clear that despite his humourous, friendly nature he has returned with an agenda. He has secret orders to arrest Maroussia's husband, accusing him of spying for the Germans since 1920 and the Japanese since 1923. This is revenge to some extent, as the reason why he had to leave Maroussia was that Kotov had sent him abroad on duty (Dimitri was qualified, speaking various languages). Eventually Kotov is taken away in a black car; despite Kotov's threats to phone Stalin himself, Kotov is badly beaten and a witness is shot. Kotov himself is later executed, after which Dimitri commits suicide.

The title of the film derives from a popular 1930s song, composed by Jerzy Petersburski and performed by Leonid Utyosov. Present also at various points in the film is a mysterious orb of light; the film states at the end that it is dedicated to those "burnt by the sun" of the Revolution.

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Movies - Burnt by the Sun

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