Hello everyone,

This wednesday, we are showing a Russian/French co-
produced movie "Utomlyonnye solntsem (Burnt by the Sun)" directed by Nikita Mikhalkov (more details below).

As usual, please feel free to send the announcements
around, and feel free to bring your friends along.

Regards,

Tom Co


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Title: Utomlyonnye solntsem (Burnt by the SUn)

Date and Time: January 19, Wednesday, 6:30-9pm  

Place: 308 Cooper Ave, Hancock

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov

Partial List of Actors:
  Nikita Mikhalkov
  Nadezhda Mikhalkova
  Oleg Menshikov
  Ingeborga Dapkunaite
  André Oumansky
  Vyacheslav Tikhonov
  Svetlana Kryuchkova

US Rating: R

Language: Russian and French (with English subtitles)

Length: 135 mins

Media: DVD, color

Summary: (by Michael Brooke via www.imdb.com)

  "Russia, 1936: revolutionary hero Colonel
  Kotov is spending an idyllic summer in his
  dacha with his young wife and six-year-old
  daughter Nadia and other assorted family
  and friends. Things change dramatically
  with the unheralded arrival of Cousin Dmitri
  from Moscow, who charms the women and little
  Nadia with his games and pianistic bravura.
  But Kotov isn't fooled: this is the time of
  Stalin's repression, with telephone calls
  in the middle of the night spelling doom -
  and he knows that Dmitri isn't paying a
  social call..."

My Comments:
  
  Released in 1994, it won the 1995 Oscars for
  Best foreign film.  Most of the acting and
  direction is very good (except I found the actor
  playing Dmitri to be the weakest). There are
  some light, cute and lovely moments, but as
  can be expected from an oppressive regime, the
  fun can not last.

  Even when I saw it the first time around the
  late 90's, the statement by Kotov which I can
  only paraphrase to be "...we are always free to
  choose our fate" a little disturbing, because
  there is a little truth to it, but not quite--
  specially when violence and imbalance of power
  is involved.  A little strange too when spoken
  by an aggressor himself.

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   This page maintained by fmorriso@mtu.edu. 

Dr. Faith A. Morrison, Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, MI 49931-1295

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