1.
Kotov
Kotov is a senior Red Army general and the winner of the "Hero of the Soviet Union". When he first appeared in the film, he was kind to his daughter, caring for his wife, and caring for the people of the village. It seemed like a high-quality image. It wasn't until the visit of the uninvited guest Mitya that the film told the audience about another aspect of Kotov's history: He had worked in the internal affairs department for a period of time, personally sent Mitya abroad to do counterintelligence work, and dismantled Mitya and Maroussia. This is of course expected. How could there not hide some darkness behind a person sitting in such a high position.
When arguing with Mitya, Kotov roared angrily: "I am a hero of the Soviet Union, who dares to move me!" But in fact, when he saw Mitya visiting, he might have realized that he was a dead person. After all, in those days, everyone knew what it meant for an official from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to visit. What counts as a hero of the Soviet Union, Kamenev, Bukharin, Tukhachevsky... which of these prominent party-state leaders escaped the scorching sun? Trotsky, the father of the Red Army, went into exile in Mexico. Despite the difficulties, Kotov still looked down on Mitya in his heart: What is Mitya? It wasn't like buying a prostitute back then. In fact, people from the exploiting class like Mitya are greedy for life and fear of death, and promise that they can betray their friends with a little benefit, even the most lowly prostitutes. It is like myself, the roots are red, and the wars of the South and the North have laid a piece of land for the new regime.
At that time, Kotov belonged to a very typical group. They contributed much to the establishment of the Soviet Republic, and the flying red flag contained their blood. After the establishment of the new regime, they, as people who have worked hard, have also received considerable benefits and have reached high positions. Usually, the more people give for a thing, the deeper their feelings for it. So of course these people have deep and loyal feelings for the new regime, and because they have occupied an important position in the regime, they consider themselves to be part of the regime. Therefore, in order to maintain the stability of the new regime, the Kotovs will not hesitate to sacrifice the interests of one person or a group of people, and they also feel at ease when implementing it-these are just some necessary prices for the success of the revolution. It's a pity that most Kotovs don't realize that in the eyes of the leader, he is just a bunch of ants, and he can be wiped out at any time if he needs it-it is also just some necessary price. When they realize this, they are usually very close to death.
At the
beginning of the Mitya film, Mitya was like a frustrated person in the revolution. He has a talent: proficient in a variety of instruments, loves poetry, and can tap dance. On the balcony, he told Nadia and his family a sad story that looked like a self-reported experience. It was so embarrassing that Maroussia, who was once his fiancée, ran upstairs and wept bitterly.
Maroussia's relatives asked where Mitya works, and Mitya said solemnly, "Working for the political police station." Then he said casually that he was just joking. This is a turning point in the movie, and interested audiences should be able to see that he didn't tell a joke. In fact, he has been carrying out counterintelligence work for the regime since 1923, and his hands have long been stained with blood. This trip is definitely not to visit the past, but to come with a soul-seeking post. Yu Gong was to purge Kotov, a "German spy"; Yu Shi, it was a journey of revenge.
After years of immersion in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mitya has become a very cold person and has become part of that system. The ten fingers in front of the piano are flying, holding the guitar and singing emotionally... This is just one aspect of him. Just like some Nazi officers also have high artistic accomplishments, it does not prevent the flowers of evil from blooming on them. He betrayed and reported eight White Army officers, leading to their execution without trial. On the way to escort Kotov, a farmer got in the way because he got lost and accidentally witnessed Kotov being escorted and beaten. He and his colleagues calmly killed the passerby, like an ant.
In fact, Mitya felt that he was really wronged: he was a nobleman, of course his family was ruined in the revolution, so he joined the White Army and the Red Army. After the defeat, he fled to Maroussia’s house and took refuge. The two fell in love at first sight. He wanted to hold his hand and grow old with him. , Gou Quan's life is in troubled times, and it will be enough to walk the rest of his life peacefully. Unexpectedly, the internal affairs department came to him and only gave him two paths: one is to serve the regime, go abroad to engage in counterintelligence work, and hunt down those "traitors." The other is self-evident-the regime has only one way to deal with non-cooperative people. He chose the first path and has since stayed incognito abroad, assisting the regime in catching "traitors" one after another. The government promised him that if he did a good job, he would be allowed to return to the house where he had lived, but then he found out that he had been cheated. He feels that this new regime has taken everything from him: life, occupation, lover, family, motherland, beliefs..., allowing him to live a life that is not like a man and a ghost is not like a ghost. In the final analysis, he felt that it was Kotov who forced him to take this path. So he wants to return for revenge, to have fun in Kotov's pain, and to savor Kotov's pain carefully one bite after another. After retaliating against Kotov, can he really get relief?
At the end of the film, Mitya cut her wrist and committed suicide. This can be understood in different ways: in the Stalin era, most of the purge operations were carried out late at night. When they heard someone knocking on their door at night, many people living in tall buildings jumped down in order to avoid the severe punishment and insult after arrest. , To fight against death. When Mitya went home at six o'clock in the morning, the phone rang suddenly. He didn't answer it. Perhaps he realized that he was about to be the subject of cleaning, and then cut his wrist. Another more likely explanation is that Mitya has lived under this system for more than ten years. He has been completely desperate and tired of the work he does. Later, his only purpose in life is to get revenge. When Kotov was sent to the torture car by himself. , The big event is over, and there is no longer a nostalgia in this world. Regardless of the reason, Mitya finally chose death as a relief, completely free from the imprisonment of the system he possessed.
Nadia Nadia is
innocent and innocent, just like a daisy that has just bloomed. Bathed in the rising sun, she is happy, and she doesn't know what sorrow is: she has been the family's darling since she was a child, has a good life, and her father is also a great hero. The Young Pioneers in her eyes got up when they heard the bugle, and went swimming as soon as the whistle sounded... She was eager to join the group, and couldn't understand Mitya's horrible words-"walking into the grave with music."
She and Mitya solemnly pull the hook, to keep this "military secret" that only told her-there will be a car coming to pull Mitya away. After knowing the secret, she stood in front of the door looking forward to it. When the car came, she stared at her with wide eyes, extremely excited and full of longing. She walked carefully to the front of the car, combed her hair carefully at the headlights of the car, and then talked with the people in the car in a serious manner. Uncle Mitya promised her to drive for a while, and she became even more excited. In order to get into the car as soon as possible, she urged her father to change clothes and go out quickly. Finally got in the car! It was a great drive. Both my uncle and dad praised her, so happy. Today is really a good day. At first she felt that the occupant in the car looked wrong, as if he had sneaked out of the zoo. When she got out of the car, she asked with concern: "Did you leave because they didn't feed you?"...The
film calmly portrays the little girl's innocence and cuteness in various details. When she was young, she was as spotless as a blank sheet of paper. In her, we can only see purity and beauty. Who can remain indifferent when seeing such a cute little girl being ruthlessly swallowed by the system? !
2. Japanese
Kotov and Mitya are enemies, but there is one thing in common between the two of them-their sincere reverence for the leader.
Maroussia asked Kotov how he would choose if he faced Mitya's situation back then. Kotov answered without hesitation that he would make the same choice. But he proudly defended the difference between himself and Mitya: one was because of his love for the motherland and the other was because of fear. In that era, the leader was the incarnation of the motherland. Kotov really loves leaders. When the time of parting came, when he hugged Nadia for the last time, he was still staring at the intimate photo of himself and Comrade Stalin, perhaps even with illusions? And why doesn't Mitya love leaders? When he saw the huge portrait of the leader hanging under the balloon, he immediately stared in awe at the slowly rising portrait, and subconsciously raised his hand in salute, completely from the bottom of his heart.
Leaders are everywhere: embroidered on the jackets of the young pioneers, among the slogans shouted in all collective activities, in the large and small statues standing in every city... The leader is the country, and the country is the leader. To love the country is to love the leader, and not to love the leader is treason. The leader is a round of tomorrow in the sky, letting out the sun to illuminate the earth. Some people bathed warmly in the sun, while others were burned by the sun, and even burned into a plume of smoke. Even the former never knows when sunlight will suddenly become poisonous and incinerate itself.
Today the leader pulls you to purge others together. You are flattered and feel warm all over: you have become the great leader's own person and close comrade-in-arms. Tomorrow you will be purged again by the leader and his other close comrades. This process repeats itself endlessly. On the stage of power, you will sing and I will appear on the stage like a revolving lantern. The only immutable eternity is Big Brother, who always sits coldly on the highest point and looks at the chaos below, and I stand still.
Every time the relationship with the leader progresses, the danger increases, because no one can always be with him, except himself. Countless people love him reverently, but he only loves himself. Cleaning, cleaning, and never-ending cleaning. Only in the process of purging did he feel that he was stable and safe: if the body destroys a person, doesn't it mean that he will never have to worry about his rebellion? The air is full of betrayal and betrayal. Friendship and family affection have become more and more indifferent. In order to protect yourself, these can be cut off without hesitation. After all, survival is the most important thing. Under this suffocating system created by the leader, countless pure and pure flowers like Nadia were burned by the scorching sun, and happy families were wiped out in the cleaning. Maybe this is the culmination of darkness in human history.
In 1994, three years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia is in the most relaxed period in its nearly 100-year history. This film with the background of the Great Purge in the Stalin era also has the opportunity to appear, bringing the audience to this era of burning sun, to receive the dazzling light of the poisonous sun...
Attachment: Some information about the Great Purge:
Senior:
All the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who played important roles in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Lenin's government were eliminated. Of the six Politburo members during the October Revolution of 1917, only Stalin himself survived. Four of the other five were executed. Leo Trotsky was expelled from the party and went into exile in Mexico. He was taken to the National Council of Internal Affairs in 1940. Assassination of the spy. From the October Revolution to the death of Lenin in 1924, four of the seven people elected to the Politburo were executed. Mikhail Tomsky committed suicide. Only two survived. From the 1966 deputies who participated in the 17th Communist Party Congress in 1934, 1,108 were arrested, and almost all of them died in prison.
Religion:
Stalin completed the systematic destruction of the Orthodox Church in the early 1930s. During the Great Purge, 165,000 priests were arrested for preaching, of which 106,000 were shot.
army:
During the Great Purge (1935-1938), one-third of the Red Army officers and almost all high-ranking generals were executed or exiled to Siberia, replaced by a large number of officers with "political experience" but no combat experience. Three of the five marshals were executed, and two-thirds of the army and division commanders were executed. This caused the Red Army to be filled with a large number of young and poorly trained officers; in 1941, 75% of the Red Army officers had served less than one year, and the average age of the commanders of the Red Army was 12 years younger than the average age of the commanders of the German divisions.
During the Soviet-German War, the main task of the Internal Committee was to safeguard the security of the rear of the front, and it also included the prevention of fleeing before the battle. According to Orders No. 270 and No. 227 of the People's Committee of National Defense signed by Stalin, officers and soldiers who retreat and affect the military's morale can be shot on the spot. During the war, approximately 158,000 Soviet officers and soldiers were shot and killed by the Supervisory Team of the Internal Commission.
Gulag:
In the middle and late 1930s, the Great Purge led to the dramatic expansion of the Gulag in the former Soviet Union’s labor camp system. According to Order No. 58 issued by the People's Internal Affairs Committee of the former Soviet Union, people began to be monitored by the former Soviet secret police, censored and detained on charges of "counter-revolution". Most of the Gulag prisoners face the difficulties of insufficient food supply, lack of warm clothing, overcrowding and lack of medical protection for most of the time. The number of abnormal deaths in the Gulag concentration camp from 1934 to 1940 was 4 to 6 times that of the former Soviet Union in the same period. According to declassified files, the reported number of deaths in the Gulag from 1930 to 1953 is estimated to be 1.76 million people. One half of them died between 1941 and 1943.
Purge executor:
After Yagoda, Yezhov, the main direct executor of the purge and the leader of the internal committee, was not spared in the end. He lost power in 1940 and was immediately executed. Beria, the head of the internal committee at the end of the Stalin era, was also arrested and executed after Stalin's death.
The evolution of the former Soviet Union's national security and political police departments: Cheka 1917-1922-> National Political Security Service (OGPU) 1922-1934-> People's Committee of the Interior NKVD (1934-1954-> KGB (KGB) 1954-1991
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