Film Review
'Burnt by the Sun' (Mikhalkov, 1994) 1995's Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Film manages the considerable feat of combining political satire with the warmth and glow of a feelgood family drama. Mikhalkov, both directs and stars as Serguei Kotov, a respected ex-military hero. By the summer of 1936, however, he's very much the family man who lives with his much younger wife Maroussia and their six-year-old daughter Nadia (played by Mikhalkov's real-life daughter Nadia). One day, the Kotovs are visited by the roguishly handsome Dimitri, who was a former lover of Maroussia Later on we find out that Dimitri has a dark mission related to Stalin and the government, which affects the Kotovs forever. In my opinion, ‘Burned by the sun’ is a powerful example of what a genuinely Russian movie can be when it uses the good sides of western film-making: things that were rare for the cinema of Soviet times. There are many reasons why I would recommend this movie to anyone