Le soleil blanc du désert

White sun of the desert was a very interesting film. It seemed to revolve around the idea of duty. It often presented different characters with a challenge that they had to rise to and overcome in whatever way they knew how. The different ways that this idea manifested itself was the interesting part. Not every hero in the film was equal. Some of them were characters that possessed traits that were far from desirable but this was not always the case. For example, the main character Sukhov was making his journey home when he was given the task of escorting a group of women across the desert. He rejected this task at first but when the women were left with him he rose to the occasion and did whatever was necessary to protect them until they reached their destination. In the beginning of the film Sukhov find and saves Sayid from death. Throughout the film Sayid repeatedly leaves to peruse his own goal of avenging his father's death, but he always seems to return when his services are needed to help protect the group of women. Another unlikely hero in the film is Vereshchagin, a drunkard that clings to his past experiences of grandeur. This character is told by his wife not to get involved in Sukhov's problem but when he is truly needed he also does what is necessary and aids Sukhov in battle.

This was a very fun film to watch. It was very interesting to watch the different types of heroes that all rose to the occasion and did what they needed to do. Sukhov was the only character in the story that was not flawed in very obvious ways, but even the characters with problems were able to give what they had to the cause. This made me think of the soviet state and how it may have wanted to deliver the message that even if one is not perfect the state would not be able to exist and function without them. Everyone had to play a part that was necessary in order to complete the goal.

This so called "eastern" (or "ostern" – western Russian style), the movie about the fight of the Red Army soldier with the bandits ("basmachi") in the Central Asia during the Civil War that followed the Revolution of 1917, became not only a cult, but also one of the most beloved pictures for several generations of the viewers in all countries of the former Soviet Union. It has become a tradition for all Russian cosmonauts to watch it the night before their flight. Its success had formed the genre of domestic "eastern".

The demobilized after many years of military service soldier Fedor Sukhov walks through the desert to his native hamlet where his beloved Caterina Matveevna has been waiting for him. The movie is made as the letters that Fedor writes to Caterina (but never sends them) and tells her (with great humor) about his (often deadly dangerous) adventures. The band of cruel Abdulla rages in the area. Sukhov is charged with the task to accompany the harem of the leader to the safe area because Abdulla intended to murder his women rather than set them free. Accompanied by a young naive Petrukha, Sukhov leads "the group of the comrades" through the desert, knowing well that the face off with Abdulla is inevitable. Smart, fast, and brave Sukhov is the Army of One but at the most dramatic moment, he would need help from the former custom officer Verechagin and not very talkative but reliable Said who never forgot that Suknov had saved him from the horrible death in desert.

I've seen this movie ten or maybe twenty times - first, when it was released many years ago and I was a middle school student in Moscow and recently - after all these years. I know I have changed but the movie has not - it is funny, dynamic, and absolutely captivating. This perfect blend of comedy, action, and touching drama is deservingly one of the best Soviet films. The theme song "Vashe blagorodiye, gospozha Udacha" ("You Honor, Lady Luck") written by one of the best Soviet composers Isaak Schwarz with the lyrics of the legendary bard Bulat Okudzhava had became an instant hit and its fame has only grown as time passed. White sun of desert still shines bright.

No other film in the world serves better to describe the idea of a Russian movie classic. This verdict could be undersigned by millions and millions of people in the former USSR.

On the other hand, this film is the best one ever made in that peculiar genre which flourished in the Soviet times under the unofficial name of "Ostern", labeled thus by some highbrow wits. What is Ostern? Plainly and simply, it is Western Russian style, with West replaced by East and the word "Ostern" itself being a pun on the German equivalents for "East" and "Easter". The genre of Ostern is strictly limited by the following rules:

The place, Central Asia; the time, the 20's, or the early 30's. The main conflict is the re-conquering by the Soviets of those parts of the region that had belonged to the Russian Empire before the revolution. The good guys are Red Army men. The bad guys are local rebels, pictured strictly as highwayman and cutthroats, known by the generic (Turkic) name of "basmachi" - imagine some Mexican banditos from your horse opera, dressed like the Taliban and headed by a Calvera (The Magnificent Seven) conveniently renamed to suit the time and place.

Now, the way the particular Ostern winds up, is this good guy Sukhov (a Russian Clint Eastwood) has to wipe out, almost single-handedly, a whole gang of smugglers and outlaws terrorizing a certain region of the Caspian (or maybe Aral?) Sea coast and headed by a gruesome yet not entirely unlikable desperado named Abdulla, who is Sukhov's main adversary.

The movie combines several genres. Sometimes it's a simple shoot-em-all, sometimes a drama, and sometimes even a bit of comedy, with all this mixed in a perfect proportion. The sparks of humor look especially good on the rather tense general background, thus creating a unique atmosphere and spicing up the whole thing.

Being the best Ostern ever made, the movie is a tolerably good action flick, but actually it's a thousand times more than that. For the Russians it's a cult movie number one, with almost every line being a celebrated catch-phrase. Especially well-known is this one, "The East is a delicate matter", said by Sukhov to his young partner Petrukha. The baleful significance of this wisecrack, made in the early 70's, has been finally appreciated only after the Afghan campaign and from then on never fails to remain on the national political agenda.

The soundtrack has become truly famous, with the theme song "Your Excellency Lady Luck" (name translated) a top hit for decades, and, no doubt, for many, many years to come.

Most of the principal characters have become heroes of numerous jokes, and therefore, part and parcel of the national folklore.

If you haven't seen this one, you don't know Russian cinematography, simply because this film alone is worth hundreds and hundreds of others made in that country.

Sukhov (Anatoliy Kuznetsov) is a former soldier making the journey home across the desert near the Caspian sea. He ends up tasked with protecting the harem of a notorious bandit leader named Black Abdullah (Kakhi Kavsadze), after the bandit left them for dead while running from the Soviet army. What should be a short and simple escort mission turns into a perilous battle when Abdullah returns for his wives, leaving only Sukhov and a handful of allies to defeat the bandit army.

Most of the Soviet films that I've seen have been the propaganda works of the late silent era and the coldly remote intellectualism of Andrei Tarkovsky. However, much like The Amphibian Man, White Sun of the Desert is an entirely different kind of Russian film, much more fun, vibrant, exotic, and entertaining. Sukhov makes for a great change-of-pace hero: positive, confident, and romantic, as depicted by his frequent narrated composition of love letters to his beloved back home, which often amusingly contrast with what's being shown on screen. The action scenes are capably done, and there are many funny lines of dialogue ("He had the wrong grenades.") that work across the cultural barrier. There are some surprisingly dark plot turns, but instead of derailing the adventurous mood of the film, it just makes it feel more Russian, somehow. Recommended.

It is an unbreakable tradition that Russian cosmonauts and foreign guests watch this movie the day before they blast off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Apart from the cultural significance this indicates, it shows where the heart and the spirit of the movie lie, where and how White Sun of the Desert transcends whatever genre it might be filed under and comes on its own.

A soldier returning home to his wife through the desert is entrusted by a regiment of the Red Army with escorting the harem of a local bandit, Black Abdullah, while the regiment looks for him. Things get complicated when he takes them to a nearby village by the Caspian sea where Abdullah arrives shortly after.

An attempt at a genre classification of White Sun of the Desert gives the term Ostern or eastern, the Soviet equivalent of the western. In some ways there is a resemblance, the landscape, horses, guns and bandits but the absurdity of the plot itself would feel more at ease in a crazed spaghetti western like Blindman than a John Ford western, and the feeling and mood belongs to a whole different worldview, with different sensibilities from either American or Italian westerns. To borrow a Japanese term, the mood of the movie carries some Russian form of "shushigaku", the sadness of things, as if all things and men carry within them an inherent sadness and all joy is not without the shadow of death. Being Balcan myself, I can see Emir Kusturicha in all this.

In that sense White of the Desert is like a desert carnival, an absurd adventure with comedic undertones through which blows a breeze of sadness, regret, loss and yearning. An old customs officer that realizes his life lost meaning the day he stopped caring and that he has to make a final stand and redeem himself, his wife that wanders the beach like a lost animal, her life meaningless without her husband, Sayid, a random encounter the hero Sukhov digs out of the desert, who is looking for the man who killed his father, nothing else having any importance or worth in his life, Sukhov himself a soldier returning home to his wife through the desert after years of war, Abdullah's harem who feel stranded and alone without their man even though he is a bandit and murderer of men and they can't comprehend how Sukhov can only have one wife.

And then you have the desert and the Caspian landscape. It surrounds everything with a mystical quality all its own, like everything happens in some corner of the world no one will ever know about and one day the sand will cover everything or the last man will just go out wandering in the desert and leave the small village behind forever, like Shukov does in the end of the movie. I have a weird fascination with the desert for this reason exactly, because deserts are places that have exhausted their future and thus have an inherent existential quality. I think this is personified in the three old men with white beards that sit at the bottom of a wall, barely speaking a word the entire movie, like an ancient lifeform that is now one with the land.

What really makes White Sun of the Desert so good is that what I mentioned above may exist only in my mind. It's never self conscious about what it does, never explicit in its symbolism and drama or calling attention to itself as anything more than a purely entertaining adventure romp. The comedic timing is good in that old fashioned way, the locations are beautiful, the acting is neat and the action is OK but nothing to write home about. It's the mood that makes the difference here though and for that alone it deserves a watch or two. Strongly recommended.