Re: Utomlyonnye solntsem
I’ve been on a Nikita Mikhalkov kick, and I watched his Oscar™-Award-winning Utomlyonnye solntsem (“Burnt by the Sun”) yesterday. First of all, it’s scary how much he looks like my late grandfather in that film. Second of all, it’s got Oleg Menchikov, who has to be the sexiest Russian actor working today (until, of course, like many good-looking Russian men, he hits that age when he starts to look like Yeltsin).
This is another story of how Stalin ruined everything (and he did). If you like Russian things, you’ll like this one. In the words of the Washington Post’s Desson Howe:
“Colonel Kotov (played by Mikhalkov) is a legendary figure in the 1917 revolution. In 1936, as Stalin's purges are gathering momentum, the mustachioed officer has retired to the country with his attractive, much younger wife Marussia (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) and precocious 6-year-old daughter Nadia (Nadia Mikhalkov—the director's own daughter whom he slung famously over his shoulder at the Academy Awards).
Kotov's serene life is destroyed when Mitia (Oleg Menshikov), an old flame of Marussia's, makes an unexpected visit—this after a considerable absence. Marussia, who married Kotov after giving up hope of Mitia's return, is confused about her feelings toward him.
Mitia is a charmer, who captivates Kotov's daughter and clearly still has sway over Marussia's feelings. Little by little, the young man's real agenda becomes apparent and Kotov, a salt of the earth who believes in his country and Stalin, learns that his glorious achievements of the past mean little in the new political climate.”
Some may remember Menchikov from “East-West” with Sandrine Bonnaire and Catherine Deneuve, but I first saw him in Sibirskij tsiryulnik (“The Barber of Siberia”), which combines broad comedy and melodrama in another oddly satisfying epic.
Menchikov is a master of portraying the ebullient, literate charm of a certain type of Russian; the charm that has left many a woman sweeping up the shards of her broken heart like Emmitt Kelly sweeping up the spotlight at the end of his act.
10:10:29 AM 
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