History Film / BurntByTheSun

* DaylightHorror: The penultimate scene of the film, [[spoiler: with Kotov being arrested and brutally beaten, and an innocent driver being shot to death in cold blood,]] happens on a bright and sunny day, in peaceful countryside surroundings.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: [[spoiler: It's part of why Mitya wants Kotov dead. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]], since in the end Mitya commits suicide and [[DidNotGetTheGirl doesn't reunite with Marusya]].]]
** [[spoiler: Probably because {{Revenge}} on both parties is likely his motive. Witness the scene where he fails to warn Marusya that she might step on broken glass. There's likely just as much resentment of her for marrying the man he hates, though he's still feels enough guilt to kill himself.]]

* FascistButInefficient:
** There's no other way to explain a military exercise that is guaranteed to destroy crops and possibly harm civilians.
** [[spoiler: Or a system that executes its military heroes on trumped-up charges just a few years before they'll be needed to fight off a German invasion.]]

You can watch ''Burnt by the Sun'' [[https://russianfilmhub.com/movies/burnt-by-the-sun-1994/ here]].

''Burnt by the Sun'' (''Утомлённые солнцем'', ''Soleil trompeur'') is a 1994 Russian drama directed by Creator/NikitaMikhalkov set in one day in the 1930s, focusing on the effect of the dictatorship of UsefulNotes/JosefStalin on a Red Army officer. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, one of only four in Russian to do so, the other three being ''Film/{{War and Peace|1966}}'', ''Film/DersuUzala'', and ''Film/MoscowDoesNotBelieveInTears''.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Mitya was 'asked' by someone very powerful (implied to be Stalin) to arrest Kotov. Knowing what would happen to the rest of Kotov's family but unable to refuse, he tries RussianRoulette and when he survives he takes the assignment.
* BathSuicide: Dimitri/Mitya at the end.
* BookEnds: The story ends where it began, in Mitya's apartment. In the beginning he was miming RussianRoulette; in the end he is slitting his wrists in the bathtub.

* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Mitya was a childhood friend and ex-fiancée of Marusya, until he disappeared more than ten years before the storyline.
* DaylightHorror: The peunltimate scene of the film, with Kotov being arrested and brutally beaten, and an innocent driver being shot to death in cold blood, happens on a bright and sunny day, in peaceful countryside surroundings.
* DownerEnding: On so many, many levels. The revolution that Kotov enthusiastically and genuinely supported ends biting him in the ass at the end of the movie and gets him killed, Mitya commits suicide, and Marusya dies in a gulag four years later. Nadya ends up being the sole survivor, and [[FridgeHorror God knows what she must have been through before she is rehabilitated]].

** Or a system that executes its military heroes on trumped up charges just a few years before they'll be needed to fight off a German invasion.
* HugeHolographicHead: Not a holograph but a giant poster, as a towering poster of Stalin is pulled up into the air via hot air balloon, symbolizing his despotic, Big Brother rule over everything.
* MalevolentMugshot: The [[http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/images/burnt25.jpg poster]] of UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, which rises above the horizon just as Kotov is being taken away to torture and execution. (The local Communist Party is putting on a commemoration of the Soviet balloon industry.)

* MurderTheHypotenuse: It's part of why Mitya wants Kotov dead. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]], since in the end Mitya commits suicide and [[DidNotGetTheGirl doesn't reunite with Marusya]].
** Probably because {{Revenge}} on both parties is likely his motive. Witness the scene where he fails to warn Marusya that she might step on broken glass. There's likely just as much resentment of her for marrying the man he hates, though he's still feels enough guilt to kill himself.
* ThePurge: Going on in a big way in 1936, as Stalin wipes out millions.
* ReignOfTerror: Stalin's Great Terror, in which millions of innocent people were tortured and put to death. Often people used the Terror to settle old scores, as seen in this film.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The way the new regime makes their citizens disappear has more than one resemblance to TheMafia, and many use this as a mean to get rid of people they just plain don't like.
* RunningGag: The truck driver who is lost, and continually asking people for directions to some town the name of which he's unsure of. Comes to a disturbing end when said truck driver blunders into the car taking Kotov away and witnesses Kotov taking a brutal beating. Mitya then shoots the truck driver to death and chucks him into the back of his truck.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Averted. After being arrested by the SecretPolice, Colonel Kotov rattles off Joseph Stalin's personal phone number. The NKVD men squirm in their seats, but when he goes to leave the car they inflict a brutal beating. Kotov has no idea that Stalin is the one ordering his arrest in the first place.

** Mitya, despite the exuberant persona he shows to everybody, is seen attempting suicide by RussianRoulette at the beginning of the movie. He's also seething with barely concealed rage about being turned into an NKVD mole, as revealed when he tells Kolya that the car is coming to take him away.

* UglyGuyHotWife: 27 years old beautiful Marusya is married to grey and balding Kotov, who looks like he's in 60s.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Mitya was 'asked' by someone very powerful (implied to be Stalin) to arrest Kotov. Knowing what would happen to the rest of his family, but unable to refuse, he tries RussianRoulette and when he survives he takes the assignment.

* FascistButInefficient: There's no other way to explain a military exercise that is guaranteed to destroy crops and possibly harm civilians.

* DaylightHorror: The peunltimate scene of the film, with Kotov being arrested and brutally beaten, and with an innocent driver being shot to death in cold blood, happens on a bright and sunny day, in peaceful countryside .

''Burnt by the Sun'' (''Утомлённые солнцем'', ''Soleil trompeur'') is a 1994 Russian drama by Creator/NikitaMikhalkov set in one day in the 1930s, focusing on the effect of the dictatorship of UsefulNotes/JosefStalin on a Red Army officer. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, one of only four in Russian to do so, the other three being ''Film/{{War and Peace|1966}}'', ''Film/DersuUzala'', and ''Film/MoscowDoesNotBelieveInTears''.

Russia, 1936: revolutionary hero Colonel Kotov is spending an idyllic summer in his village 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 (Creator/OlegMenshikov) 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...

* BadassMoustache: Kotov sports a pair of them.

* BookEnds: The story ends where it began, in Mitya's apartment, but in the end he is slitting his wrists in the bathtub.
* BrawnHilda: The fat lady walking on the strand asking everyone what time it is.

* DidNotGetTheGirl: Although it seems like Mitya would love to resume is life with Marusya, in the end he doesn't and commits suicide.

* EnergyBall: [[http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/images/burnt24.jpg Ball lightning]].

* MalevolentMugshot: The [[http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/images/burnt25.jpg poster]] of UsefulNotes/JosefStalin.
* ManChild: Kirik barely seems to behave his age.
* {{Meganekko}}: Lyuba does have a pair of big, round glasses.
* MayDecemberRomance: Marusya looks like she's half her husband's age, or even less.

* PluckyGirl: Nadya. Big time.

* RunningGag: The truck driver who is lost.

** Mitya, despite the exuberant persona he shows to everybody, is seen attempting suicide by RussianRoulette at the beginning of the movie.

* {{Tomboy}}: If Nadya's desire to be a pioneer when she'll grow up is any indication.

* StepfordSmiler: Marusya. She has already attemped suicide and her cheerful façade starts to slip as soon as Mitya shows up.
** Also, Mitya himself qualifies: despite the exuberant persona he shows to everybody, he's seen attempting suicide by RussianRoulette at the beginning of the movie.