Tuesday, December 25, 2007

BURNT BY THE SUN...

This film won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. Pretty respectable, right? I thought so enough to watch the movie. I was intrigued by the story of Colonel (war hero, family man) Kotov, his much younger wife Maroussia, and six year-old daughter Nadia in a glimpse of their life on a typical summer afternoon. The family is enjoying time with each other and Maroussia's family at their family homestead and all goes well until a surprise guest shows up. Everything both good and bad that could possibly happen seemed to take place that day. Remember, the time period was 1936 post Russian Revolution and Stalin was at the healm.

A few scenes that I found interesting and worthy of paying attention to:
  • Why did Maroussia have a scar on her wrist/arm?
  • Who was the driver of the truck and why was he so lost?
  • The respect and love shown by Colonel Kotov to both his family and country was admirable and quite touching.
  • Why did Demitri choose what he did at the end?

There was a lot of symbolism in this movie and I think I got most of it. I'm sure a few things got by me and that's why I'll watch it again, but done in a very clever way.

I don't want to spoil anything by being to detailed here and would recommend this movie to everyone if time permits.

If anyone else saw the movie, would you agree that the truck driver that I am referring to in my second dot above is symbolic of the chaos and frustration that was taking place in Russia at this time and the mistrust and paranoia that was rampant? I'm curious to know what others think. Thanks - Sam

1 comment:

Jeff Jones said...

Sam this is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I look forward to eventually doing a class on Russian/Soviet film in which, of course, this one will be prominently featured. You're right--there's a lot of symbolism in the film. I see the truck driver as symbolic of the randomness of the killings during the purges, which is when the film is set--the worst two-year period of Stalin's brutal regime were 1936-38. The truck driver is just lost, plain and simple, but the KGB morons think he was part of a set-up to free Kotov. The driver (and eventually Kotov himself of course) pays for the mistake with his life. There's so much more one could discuss with regard to this movie, but like yourself I don't want to give too much away. I do strongly recommend to everyone though when they have time, which seems to be the main mantra of this class! Jeff