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(More customer reviews)Among Soviet movies there are more expensive (Bondarchuk's War and Peace) and more intellectual (Sokurov, Tarkovsky), but The White Sun of the Desert remains the best known and the most popular Russian film ever made. If you ask people (especially men) who were born and raised in the former Soviet Union, you will be convinced by their enthusiastic response and expression of love for this movie. It is rare indeed for a work of art to elicit such a uniform and unconditional admiration, and there must be something about this film which deserves such a reaction from several hundred million people.
There is a lot of myths and legends surrounding the creation of this film.
One legend (which is probably true) has it that, after the movie was made, it was censored and "put on the shelf" never to be seen again. Then, one dark and stormy night, there was a call to the State Film Archives from Brezhnev's dacha (suburban mansion). They were asking for something new for the "big boss" to watch. The clerk on duty, scared out of his wits, picked up a reel-box and sent it with the awaiting car. Brezhnev (who was not senile yet) liked the movie and asked why it has not been released. The rest is history.
The timeless appeal of this movie, as any other true work of art, is that you can watch it time after time, never tire of it, and find something new and interesting about it. Every kind of viewer will find something to like about this film: excellent direction, good actor's work, well-developed characters, unusual plot line, and a lot of action. And the best of all: it is based on the true events.
The original intent of the movie was to shoot another action flick about the Red Army fighting anti-soviet bands in the Middle Asia after the Civil War. Another legend has it that when one of the old Red Army soldiers who participated in actual fighting was asked by the script-writer and director about the difficulties of the time, he thought about it for a while and then said that the most difficult question was what to do with all those women coming from harems of bandits who were either killed or in hiding. That created the wonderful story line of the movie.
The quality of image transfer on this DVD is very good. If you watch many foreign language movies, you probably know that the best way is to read the subtitles, not listen to the dubbed version, which is not good anyway.
If you are interested in cinematography, you cannot do without watching this film. If you just would like to watch an interesting movie - get it, you won't regret.
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In this international cult favorite, a Central-Asian action film, the Red Army clashes with counter-revolutionary robber bands. Demobbed soldier Fyodor Sukhov is making his way through the desert to his home village, where the band of brutal Abdulla is raging. Sukhov is charged with escorting the chief's harem, because Abdulla intended to kill his women rather than let them go free. Sukhov"s mate, young soldier Petrukha, dies at the hand of Abdulla, but at a decisive moment, Sukhov gets help from the former customs officer Vereschchagin and a poor peasant.
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