Burnt by the Sun

For being made in 1994, I was a little disappointed in this film. It was slow at times and some parts didn't seem right for the movie. I didn't understand the glowing ball of whatever that kept coming into the movie. I could see it being the sun and it could of been showing being burnt by the sun, but I really didn't understand it moving around the house and then out to the field where it lit the tree on fire. I was thinking it was going to set the wheat on fire since, at the start of the movie, the "towns people" had a fit with all the tanks in the wheat fields. It just lit the tree on fire and they never came back to it. The song was also recurring. I think that "being burnt by the sun" means that if you mess with fire your going to get burned type of thing. I think that Kotov had gone against Stalin and there for messed with the fire, and at the end, he gets burned. It seemed like he let his guard down. I think that Kotov was more laid back than Chapaev was, but we also didn't see Kotov in action as much as we did Chapaev. Chapaev was more laid back towards the end of his film, but I don't think you can compare the two because these were two different types of movies. Mitya seemed to be in deep right from the start. As he said later in the film, this job had ruined his life and his profession. He wanted to kill himself at the start of the film! Once he got started in his killings, the government wouldn't let him go and give him what they promised. He had to do what he was told or be cut off and killed. When he arrests Kotov, I think he does it more for political reasons rather than personal ones. Even though he is in love with Marusia and gets along with Nadya well, I don't think he wanted to take him away from those two. He was told to do a job and that was to arrest Kotov. Kotov was trying to make a difference and maybe take a different route than Stalin. He tells Nadya about how travel will be better when they're in the boat. This was one part of his "plan". Kotov represents one side and Mitya represents Stalin's side. Lastly, since this film was made after the fall of the Soviet Union, I believe this film was made for an international audience more than a Russian one. The film shows how if you mess with the government, they will hunt you down and eliminate you with no regrets about it. Kotov was obviously an important figure, a hero, and made a good impression on everyone. Everyone noticed him, and yet he was still taken down because he thought differently than Stalin. The film just shows how the Soviets were behind closed doors.