Good, evil and Stalinism

Burnt By The Sun Starring Nikita Mikhalov, Oleg Menchikov. Directed by Nikita Mikhalov. Category 2B. Now playing at Broadway Cinematheque. In Russian with Chinese and English subtitles.

Communism did not fail in Russia - it was simply betrayed by its leaders. Or that is the message of Nikita Mikhalov's resonant remembrance of times past, anyway.

Set in the early 1930s, during Stalin's purges of the party membership, the film pits a solid, honest revolutionary against a scheming member of the newly formed secret police out to get him. What results is not so much a conflict of political ideologies as a bitter story about good and evil - a small tale that reflects how Comrade Joe betrayed both a political philosophy and a whole people.

This is no political tract, however, but a rich, emotional story with all the depth of a classic Russian novel. The setup is simple: Colonel Kotov, a hero of the Russian Revolution, lives quietly in his dacha in the countryside, with his wife Maroussia and his daughter Nadia. He is surrounded by friends, who amuse themselves by playing the piano, playing games, and simply enjoying the countryside. Into this idyllic existence comes Dimitri, a swish, urban musician and former lover of Maroussia.

Dimitri effortlessly inveigles his way back into the lives of Maroussia and Nadia, impressing all with his sophisticated city manners and tricks. But from the start both the audience and Kotov know that Dimitri has a hidden agenda - he is a KGB man out to arrest Kotov.

Kotov realises the arrest is inevitable, and never tries to escape from Dimitri - he thinks his old friend Stalin is unaware of his predicament and a phone call to him will get him off the hook. This means that the film does not play out as a direct conflict between the two men. Instead, it is a much more subtle piece, showing how Kotov and Dimitri quietly compete for the affections of Maroussia and Nadia, displaying their personalities and beliefs as they go. Meanwhile, signs of Stalin's emerging personality cult are all around, including a giant portrait that hovers surrealistically over a cornfield, supported by a hot air balloon.

The film is directed by Russian film-maker Mikhalov, noted for the marvellous Mongolian tale Urga. Mikhalov also plays the role of Kotov, while his six-year-old daughter Nadia plays little Nadia. Burnt By The Sun then, inevitably, sympathises with the old revolutionary throughout. 'Our film is dedicated to the victims, to all those burnt by 'the betraying of the sun' of the Revolution,' he says.