Burnt by the sun = Utomlynonnye solntsem

Set in the Russian summer of 1936, “Burnt By the Sun” is a splendid film about the human damage wreaked by the Stalinist purges, and the betrayal of the revolutionary hopes of the Soviet people. Colonel Serguei Kotov is a military hero of the Bolshevik Revolution who is surrounded by loving family and comrades. In this ideal existence arrives a stranger, Dimitri, who represents the cold, indifferent face of Stalin’s terror. Slowly Kotov realises he is enmeshed in a senseless and violent maze from which there is no escape. Beautifully shot and executed, “Burnt By the Sun” is a study in the creeping paranoia and madness of a regime which has lost sight of its roots and lost sight of humanity. By encapsulating the drama of betrayal, corruption and totalitarianism in the personal struggle of Kotov to make sense of what it happening to himself and his family, this film offers both a powerful examination of the Stalinist era as well as acknowledging the impossibility of any one film, any one document being able to fully represent the horror of a period in which millions lost their lives, their dreams and their sanity. Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film. In Russian with English subtitles.