It is difficult to imagine, but! If anyone of the Cannes-2010 Jury read this, please, do not give any prize to this trash with "great movie" label. Do not defame my country.
So, the "masterpiece"... Every film starts with its slogan nowadays. This time it was "The Great movie about the Great war". Let's even forget Mikhalkov is not overly modest. But, if you dare to touch such important subject before the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory and declare your product "Great", it must be great.
And what we see? All the movie is full of stupidity, Mikhalkov's fantasy and himself. Several separate novels (bad plots). About what? Who knows! There are good Nazi military men and bad soviet civil men and women. Stupid soviet people force Nazis to bomb Russian Red Cross ship, or, for variety's sake, burn 100 or 500 peasants. Nazies even cry when they are forced to do so! And only Mikhalkov's Kotov does the right things. He is everywhere. He - but not any sense. There is no need for the voluminous review to summarize, Utomlyonnye solntsem 2 are: nazi ass, trying to defecate down from 400 km/h plan, and "show me your tits". Great...
BTW, "burnt" may sound better for English-speakers, but the right translation is "Tired by the sun" - not "Burnt...". And you are really tired after watching this movie...
Plot summary
Epic film about WWII, a sequel to Burnt by the Sun (1994). Evil Stalin is terrorizing people of Russia while the Nazis are advancing. Russian officer Kotov, who miraculously survived the death sentence in Stalin's Purge, is now fighting in the front lines. His daughter, Nadia, who survived a rape attempt by Nazi soldiers, is now a nurse risking her own life to save others. In the war-torn nation even former enemies are fighting together to defend their land. People stand up united for the sake of victory. The deadly war comes at very high cost: the Nazis are killing people, burning villages, raping women, bombing churches, destroying bridges. Hoping to survive, Kotov and his daughter are having visions of each other, but their dreams fade amidst massive bombardment. Fire and smoke eclipses the sun. The land around becomes lifeless, defenseless and littered with the dead. Then the dead are covered by snow. Life is over. Only a butterfly is flying above the weapons and corpses, alluding to eternity.
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Cannes, don't!
At last an objective Russian war movie.
Yes, at last !!!! I waited since so many years now, to see an objective film from Russia bout the great patriotic war. 99% of those I already watched were not. They were patriotic, yes, but so far from actual facts. Russian fighters were the best and Germans a bunch of idiots!!! Bunch of idiots who provoked 25 millions of deaths in Russia....Russian audiences don't like truth but fake and lies, PURE PROPAGANDA. That unfortunately belongs to Russian culture. Yes, I persist and sign, this tremendous film is very unusual from the Russian film industry. The best over th best will remain though GO AND SEE, directed by Elem Klimov, back in 1986. One thing though I find lousy is that the Russian soldiers characters fighting on the front, seem to well fed, with plump cheeks. So far from the awful truth which those brave warriors had to face. The Red Army was not that good in 1941 and 1942; it was not till 1943, after Stalingrad victory and the massive American help with food, equipment and weapons, that the Russian Army could make it, because of the millions of fighters and equipent warfare. But never forget that the German Army was the best army in the world, if you consider the tactical point of view, and also equipment, professionalism of the soldiers and officers, and above all, DISCIPLINE. In the Russian army, only Joukov brought some brutal discipline, fighting against alcoholism and deserters. Between June 2nd 1941 and october of the same year, there were more than 670 000 desertersin the Red Army....All those facts are mostly "put under the carpet" in Russian war movies.
Still a Watchable War Drama
Granted, Burnt By the Sun 2 is not as good as the original, but as an anti-war film it is still watchable. I think rating it one star out of ten is excessively and unjustifiably harsh on the film and director Mikhalkov.
I have no way of gauging the historic accuracy of the film, so I will avoid looking at it from that angle. As a war film, expensively done - some scenes of destruction are stunning - and at 3 hours, I enjoyed watching it. The jumping back-and-forth within a period of 3-4 years was not done properly, nor was it necessary in my opinion. This makes the story a bit hard to follow for viewers like me. The blood and gore in battle scenes did not turn me off, and it did to some, and I have no issue of Mikhalkov taking an extra step in depicting the horror of war and the physical damage done to human bodies. War had never been pleasant.
Keep and open mind and watch this film. Brush aside its shortcomings. One can still find a decent film in BYTS2.