Burnt By The Sun- A Critique

Betrayal & Burning Trees

Burnt By the Sun was directed by Nikita Mikhalkov in 1994. The film is the story of one day in the life of a family in a Dacha, and serves as a commentary of the destructive nature of the Soviet revolution in Russia. In the film, there are two men who represent the struggle between commitments to the ‘big’ soviet family, and to the personal family. Mikhalkov favors Kotov, as that character is not only played by the director himself, but is someone that Mikhalkov- given his own history- would have more easily identified with. Kotov is shown through various filmic techniques to be the ‘protector’ of the Dacha family, while Mitya comes in as a destructive force of the NKVD. Mikhalkov makes Kotov’s character the more sympathetic of the two even in the end, by going to his own death with continued faith in Stalin. While Mitya becomes cowardly remorseful, and takes his own life.

While neither of the two men are completely evil or completely innocent, it is clear that Mitya is meant to be viewed as the villainous force in this film. He comes in with a connection to the Dacha family, and seems to be able to fit right back in with their dynamic. In one of the first few scenes with Mitya at the Dacha, he comes into the room where all the family is gathered and sits directly in the middle in the foreground of the frame. This makes him the center of attention, and he seems to be aggressively at ease in this situation. Kotov, on the other hand, stands in the background of the frame, and he never sits. He seems to be shown looking out over the family, directly in line with Mitya, almost as if he feels the need to stand as a sentry for the Dacha.

When more details are learned about the family, that they are of a more upper-class upbringing, that the patriarch used to be a musician but has since passed on- it comes into question how they are still maintaining this level of lifestyle in the midst of the Soviet revolution. The answer is clear: that Kotov, being so highly regarded as a war hero and close counterpart of Stalin, has protected these people. It seems that now Kotov must continue to protect them against someone they seem to trust, Mitya, who is now working for the NKVD. Kotov knows this because, as it is later revealed, he is the man who sent Mitya to work for them. And now Mitya is back to take Kotov away to be killed, though the Dacha family never becomes aware of this fact. Despite his connections to these people, Mitya still hurts them by taking away their protector, though he likely has no choice in the matter.

An hour into the film, the family has returned to the Dacha after they have been forced to participate in the gas drill on the beach. Mitya and Marusya sit at the piano, playing a can-can for the family. As has been the case most of the film, the family wears white, a symbol of their pre-soviet lifestyle. Mitya, however, is wearing a crimson robe and still has his gas mask on. He does not remove the mask for the remainder of the scene. The family begins to dance, and Marusya gets up to join in with her family, while Mtya remains playing the piano. Kotov enters the room and stands in the doorway, having a stare-off with Mitya’s masked face before exiting to the dining room.

Mitya has been established as a threat to the Dacha family previously, but the fact that he remains in red while they all wear white heightens that sentiment. A deep red represents his ties with the NKVD, and his forced loyalties to Stalin. Even Kotov himself wears lighter colors while at the Dacha, though his clothes are not nearly as ‘fine’ as the rest of the family’s. Mitya wears the gas mask even when the family has gone to eat dinner, and his playing becomes more frantic as time goes on. The camera holds on his face for what seems like a long amount of time, as the music he plays becomes faster and faster. His gas mask hides his face, stops the viewers from being able to see his expression and know what he is feeling or thinking. Everything that could be known about him is hidden in this moment, just as his true intentions for returning to the Dacha are hidden from the family.

The music he plays is a Can-Can that he and Marusya reminisce about playing when they were younger. The music is french, and has an air of aristocracy, just as the family does. It is a symbol of their social status, and a reminder that this family would have been destroyed under Stalin’s rule if they did not have someone looking out for them. That someone being Kotov, who does not have the same background that the family does.  In this scene, Kotov comes in and waves his hat to Mitya, who continues to stare at Kotov through his mask until Kotov leaves. It is obvious that dancing and listening to this type of music is something that the Dacha family is fond of, and Mitya seems to fit right in to this situation.

Kotov, on the other hand, is a complete outsider at this time. He states after he has gone into the dining room, that he does not speak French, so he cannot ask the family to join him. Kotov believes in the Soviet message, and aside from his wife and daughter- has no connection to this family. Though in this moment, he seems to belong more that Mitya, in that he is dressed similarly and is placed in the foreground with them. Mitya is seated in the background with the piano, as though  he is a looming fixture rather than an old family friend. When the family leaves the camera pulls in on Mitya, making him bigger in the scale of the frame and thus more frightening. He is clearly shown as something nefarious, cloaked in red and hidden behind a mask. Mitya represents the looming threat of Stalin and the NKVD upon this bourgeois family.

Burnt By the Sun can not be spoken about as a film representing the clash and destruction of the ‘big family’ ideals with the ‘personal family’ without mention the ball of light that moves through out two very important scenes in the film. The first time this ball of light is shown, Mitya has just told Nadya a fairy tale which was the very thinly veiled story of how he knows Kotov. The second time is at the end of this film, after Kotov has been killed and Mitya takes his own life. The film ends with a dedication, “Dedicated to everyone who was burnt by the sun of the revolution.”  This ball of light was the ‘sun’ of the revolution, but more importantly, this ball of light represented the destruction of one agent of the revolution, Mitya.

The ball of light first appears as Mitya reveals- through the guise of telling a story to Nadya- that Kotov is the one who sent him away to be in the NKVD. It moves through the house, and as it interacts with the physical landscape, it is obvious that this ball is actually in that house. It destroys a photograph, just as Mitya is bring damage to the life of Marusya by revealing these truths. The ball is a destructive force that can not be stopped, and that no one in the Dacha seems to be able to notice, which is exactly what Mitya is to them. He is a force of destruction, something created by Stalin and the Soviets that is there to destroy their lives. And to take away Kotov’s. Marusya now knows the truth, that her husband is the one who sent away her first love, and this damage can not be undone. The light passes through the rooms of the Dacha, illuminating the signs of Mitya’s past with the family, bringing the details of his story to the light. As Kotov confronts Marusya and Mitya finishes his story, the ball of light moves away from the house and sets a tree on fire- a foreshadowing of its destructive power.

The second and final time that the ball of light is shown is at the end of the film, as Mitya lays dying in his own home. The scene is one of the most dimly lit in the film, and the camera pans slowly down Mitya’s body as he lies in the bathtub. It is not obvious at first that he has slit his wrists- something that recalls the way Marusya tried to kill herself when Mitya first left for the NKVD- but it is clear that something is unsettlingly wrong. The ball of light moves in from the window, and is the only source of light shown in his apartment. As the ball moves to where Mitya is located, the camera moves down and his body lying in a bathtub full of red water is revealed. The red is caused by his blood filling the water of course, but it is also a reference to the Soviet red, that even though Mitya chose to take his own life, it is still caused by the destructive nature of Stalin’s revolution. The ball of light stops at the end of the tub, just when it seems that it is going to continue back out the window and into the world. The ball of light then fizzles and dies out, and it can be assumed that Mitya has done the same. (If the sequel to the film is to be ignored.)

The light dying with Mitya shows that neither can do any more damage, they can not take or destroy any more lives, their threats are no longer in existence. Both Mitya and the light were representative of the ‘Sun of the Revolution’, something that burned people, destroyed lives and could not be stopped. It did not matter that Mitya had once belonged to the family at the Dacha, he had a commitment to the NKVD, and had to do what his responsibilities asked of him. Mikhalkov  shows the grey-area nature of Russia under Stalin with this idea. That there are no outright villains or heroes in this story, both Mitya and Kotov had done horrible things and both men died because of them.

In the end, Kotov’s death is shown as the more tragic, he dies by the orders of someone that he trusted until the very end of his life. Though Kotov does break down and cry in his last moments on screen, he does not die by his own hand. Even with eir death scenes, Kotov is given more narrative time on screen than Mitya. It is not until halfway through his final scene that it becomes obvious that Mitya is dying, alone is his apartment. The revolution can also be blamed for Mitya’s death, though it is his own mind and hand that directly causes it. Suicide is often portrayed as a weakness in character or will, and Mikhalkov gives Mitya this end and robs him of the honor that is given to Kotov’s death. There is no mistaking the tragedy in both of these men’s deaths, being forced into suicide by grief and being betrayed by your country and shot, but Kotov’s story is shown in a more sympathetic light. Overall, Mikhalkov leaves the viewers with more sympathy towards Kotov’s demise, though with an overwhelming sense melancholy for the truth that the film brings about Russia under Stalin: that so many were burnt by the sun of the revolution.

Citations:

Burnt by the sun. Dir. Nikita Mikhalkov. Columbia TriStar Home Video, 1995. Film.

Beumers, Birgit. A history of Russian cinema. English ed. Oxford: Berg, 2009. Print.