OK, sorry to disappoint some of you but i'm not a big fan of Nikita
Mikhalkov. Why? His films has too much of a mainstream filmmaking
vibe to them. But for his (maybe designated) western audiences it surely
works fine as everybody shouts hysterically like in a fucking
Fellini film and the common russian people are all very colorful, sings
and shouts, and western filmcritics surely lap it up eagerly.
Artmovie sentiments mixed with mainstream sugary sweet and colorful
stuff - that renders a Cannes prize surely.
But, it's a trilogy of epic proportions and in part 2 and 3 i enjoyed
the trashy happenings, a war comedy ? Enjoyable trashy WW2 fun.
Burnt by the Sun from 1994 was a huge
success everywhere, and it won .... an Oscar award for Best Foreign
picture. AHA! So i was
right about my feelings after all, everything that irritated me in the
1994 Burnt by the Sun are criteria necessary for winning an Oscar.
It tells the story about a russian family, the family of the revolution
and WW1 war hero, officer Sergei Petrovich Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov)
who stays in their villa (or Datja) at the countryside during a hot
russian summer.
And everything is fucking Fellini ... yuck! ... with shouting hysteric
people everywhere. I'm sure russian people, just as us other living
in
the north (swedes, finns etc.) are not behaving like this, we're not
in southern Italia are we ?
But this is 1936 or something and the terrore of Stalin
looms over them, and the family friend cousin Mitya, visiting them,
now works for the
Secret police and the film ends with General Kotov taken away for a
probable execution.
Mitya or Dmitry Andreevich Arsentiev is played brilliantly
by the great actor Oleg Menshikov, and he keeps the
trilogy interesting with a
very interesting role character. Driven by jealousy and hatred against
Kotov ... but also by love, his role has some layers to it.
Exodus: Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010) (Exodus - Utom l'ennye solntsem
2)
Kotov is alive! He wasn't executed after all and now
he's in a prison when Nazi Germany attacks Sovjet Union in 1941. He
turns up in a
battalion of prison soldiers at the front and he survives everything
that's thrown at him, he's unkillable really.
Mitya is now a colonel and on Stalin's order looks for Kotov.
There are some admittedly powerful scenes from the war in Exodus 2,
but also some trashy and ridiculous one's as the ending scene
Citadel (Burnt by the Sun: Fortress/
Battle of Kursk: Where Hitler Lost the War, 2010)
The film starts with a CGI mosquito's POV buzzing through
a trench at the front. The Red Army besieges a Citadel hold by the germans
and Kotov is still in the prisoner battalion along with i.a. buddy Kolya
(Andrei Merzlikin).
Colonel Arsentiev, Mitya is still searching for Kotov with the help
of his assistant Ryabov (played by Vladimir Ryabov) and lots of
chaotic war scenes follows, some playing out like a satire of some Kusturica
movie, with shouting colorful russian people and lots of
bad CGI. But, it's pure trashy fun mixed with some great scenes, as
the ending scene with an endless parade of tanks on their way to
Berlin, to take revenge on Nazi Germany for their crimes against Mother
Russia.
And, Oleg Menshikov is pure class, with his feelings towards Kotov complicated
too say the least, full with hate and even more with
self-hatred. Very good reviews for her role received Nadezhia Mikhalkova
as Kotov's daughter, growing up during filming
Presented in anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 and a russian
audio 5.1 with swedish subtitles
