BURNT BY THE SUN
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
BURNT BY THE SUN is a Russian film and was the winner of the 1995 Academy Award for best foreign film. It is a comedy set in the 1930s during the Stalin era in Russia.
Colonel Serguei Petrovitch Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov) is an old hero of the revolution now retired to a small village. He is married to a lovely young wife, Maroussia Kotov (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), and together they have a beautiful young daughter, Nadia Kotov (Nadia Mikhalkov). Into their life comes Maroussia's old boyfriend, Dimitri/Mitya (Oleg Menchikov). The plot from there made little sense so I will not attempt to outline the story more.
If you like Russian style humor or if you Monty Python style British humor, you will probably go gaga over this show. I was at a fairly full movie house where most of the audience set in stone silence as if they didn't get it. A few people however were in non-stop laughter mode. For this show you either love or you hate it. There is no in-between. As you can guess by the rating, I am in the I-don't-get-it category.
Let me note the two highlights of the show. First, the cinematographer (Vilen Kaluta) manages to make an oppressive dictatorship have a radiant feel that makes you think old Joe Stalin's country would have been a pretty peaceful place to live. Watch the Daddy and the young girl drift down the lake on their boat. Picture perfect. Notice how the camera hugs them in the close ups and how the shots are carefully done with a twilight glow.
The second highlight of the movie was in the attractive and visually interesting actors cast to play the lead father, mother, and young girl. The girl was especially charming.
Now for the rest of the review. I found the script by Roustam Ibraguimbekov and Nikita Mikhalkov to be a mess. Certainly there were the odd, good one liners. My favorites was the one about a woman who was so into medicine that when the doctor prescribed iron, she boiled nails and drank the water.
Mainly though the scriptwriters and the director (Nikita Mikhalkov) relied on broad humor and sight gags of the Monty Python style. We had a redhead whose claim to humor was that she wore round, large framed glasses always on the tip of her nose. We also had many fat people who were supposed to be funny solely because of their girth. In one scene, a fat woman blocks Mitya's view and that in and of itself is supposedly humorous. We have a Summer Santa figure in a long ugly beard, long hair, and bad clothes, that was supposed to make us laugh. Many of the characters had exaggerated gestures in failed attempts at humor. I generally don't like slapstick comedy, and this movie was no exception.
I have now seen all of the 1995 Academy Award for best foreign films. They were:
BEFORE THE RAIN (Macedonia)
BURNT BY THE SUN (Russia)
EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN (Taiwan)
FARINELLI: IL CASTRATO (Belgium)
STRAWBERRY & CHOCOLATE (Cuba)
I enjoyed BURNT BY THE SUN least of all. I would have given the award hands down to EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN. Although I liked parts of all of the others, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN was the only consistently excellent one of the bunch. See my reviews of all of them for more details.
BURNT BY THE SUN runs on and on and finally ends after an exhausting 2:14. It is in Russian with English subtitles. It is unrated, but would be PG or perhaps PG-13 for very brief nudity and a little violence. It is a harmless show. I do not recommend it unless you are into sight gags, exaggerated characters, or a fan of Russian humor. For the beauty of the filming and for no other reason, I award it *.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: June 5, 1995
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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