Burnt by the Sun

I found this film very interesting, however there were many things about the movie that made me upset. It was easy for me anyways, to see Dmitri as an intruder into the lives of happy people, and causing harm to everyone. I can see how you could side with him because he had to leave the country and lost alot of what he had in his life. But, that doesn't matter, he shouldn't have come back and made all of that crap up about Kotov who was obviosly very loyal to his country. Kotov was also portrayed as much more peasant like than Dmitri even though Kotov was a high-rank military official. Dmitri is shown as being very lavish. He knows how to play the piano well and tap-dance. He questions why they don't play more gentlemenly games.

I think that using this song as the title for the movie was a very good idea. The sun can portray the revolution or the ideas of the Socialist Realism. Almost all of the people in this film get "burnt by the sun", in that they almost all lost their lives trying to create this perfect socialism. All most all of the characters were killed in this film, even the young daughter, who was truly the brightness of the film, she could pick her dad's emotions up with one look even when something terrible had happened or he was in a bad mood.

I already explained how I strongly disliked Mitya's character. He was very sneaky and there wasn't one moment where I sided with him. Kotov and Chapaev seem very similar to me. They are both high ranked military officials, but they don't live their everyday life like that. They view themselves as equals with everyone else. I don't think that there were political motives at all in the arresting of Kotov. That was just Mitya's excuse for getting back at Kotov, it was purely personal motives that caused this to occur.

I think that this film was probably more for an international audience. I think that it was made to be more popular of a film and make the world aware of these things and the struggles and bad things that occured during the Socialist Realist time. It seems like it really was a film trying to say, "These are some of the things that really happened in Russia, and what they had to go through." It definitely wouldn't be purely for the other countries of the world, I think that it is a good film for Russians too. It portrays the message of how loyal some of the military was to the idea of the Revolution. It also shows great honor in Kotov, when he knows what is going to happen to him, however he goes willingly, and shows trust, because he believes that he will be set free by Stalin himself.

I liked this movie alot, however the end was fairly depressing. It was nice to see some color and still have the sound. I also liked the acting in the film alot, it definitely deserved the Oscar.