Sunstroke

Sunstroke (2014)

Солнечный удар

In a Crimean filtration camp, after the evacuation of the White Army, an unnamed captain is haunted by memories of a brief romance as he tries to understand how the Russian Empire fell apart and who is to blame.

Date of release
2014-10-04
TMDB
4.8 / 10 (25)
Runtime
2h 55m
Genres
History, Drama
Director
Nikita Mikhalkov

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $1.7M
  • Budget: $24M
  • Earned 0.1× its budget
  • Based on: Cursed Days
  • Filmed in: Switzerland and Russia
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Sunstroke is a 2014 Russian historical romance film directed, produced and written by Nikita Mikhalkov, starring Martinsh Kalita and Viktoriya Solovyova. It is set after the collapse of the Russian Empire during the Red Terror in 1920, with flashbacks to 1907, and is loosely based on the story "Sunstroke" and the book Cursed Days by Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer Ivan Bunin. The film was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

Production

The musical score for Sunstroke was composed by Eduard Artemyev, who has collaborated with Mikhalkov on numerous movies (At Home Among Strangers, An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano, Burnt by the Sun, The Barber of Siberia, etc.).

A leading tune accompanying the lieutenant's romantic feelings – toward his bride and the beautiful stranger – is a popular mezzo-soprano aria from Camille Saint-Saëns's opera Samson and Delilah called "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart opens itself to your voice"), sung by Delilah as she attempts to seduce Samson into revealing the secret of his strength.

Also included in the soundtrack is the version of Nikolai Devitte's Russian Gypsy song "Ne Dlya Menya" (Not for me), performed by Mikhalkov himself, backed by the Kuban Cossack Choir. This song had already been used by the director; in his 1979 film Five Evenings it was sung by Stanislav Lyubshin's character.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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