Burnt by the Sun [Utomlyonnye solntsem] **** (1994, Nikita Mikhalkov, Oleg Menshikov, Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė, Nadezhda Mikhalkova) – Classic Movie Review 13,285

Nikita Mikhalkov’s highly regarded 1994 Russian drama film Burnt by the Sun won the Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and the 1995 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Writer/ producer / director Nikita Mikhalkov’s highly regarded 1994 Russian drama film Burnt by the Sun [Utomlyonnye solntsem] stars Nikita Mikhalkov, Oleg Menshikov, Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė and Mikhalkov’s daughter Nadezhda Mikhalkova. It won the Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and the 1995 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

It is a moving, beautifully handled period romantic triangle and political drama, set one hot day in the Russian countryside in 1936 during the Great Purge in the Stalinist Soviet Union. While on holiday with his wife Maroussia (Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė), young daughter and friends and family, the happiness of a senior Red Army officer, Russian revolutionary hero Colonel Sergei Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov), is disturbed by the arrival of his wife’s old lover, his cousin Dimitri (Oleg Menshikov), after many years’ absence.

Splendidly acted and ideally directed, at its best it plays like a Jean Renoir picture of a Chekhov play – a much deserved great compliment.

It is co-written by Azerbaijani screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov.

Burnt by the Sun [Utomlyonnye solntsem] is directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, runs 135 minutes, is made by Caméra One and Studio Trite, is released by Sony Pictures Classics (US) and Guild (UK), is written by Nikita Mikhalkov and Rustam Ibragimbekov, is shot by Vilen Kaluta, is produced by Nikita Mikhalkov, and is scored by Eduard Artemyev.

The cast are Nikita Mikhalkov, Oleg Menshikov, Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė, Nadezhda Mikhalkova, André Oumansky, Svetlkana Kryuschkova, Vladimir Ilyin.

Release dates: 21 May 1994 (Cannes Film Festival) and 2 November 1994 (Russia).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,285

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