The End of the 20th Century: Nikita Mikhalkov’s Heroes in the World of Modern Values

Łucja Demby

Abstract

Demby analyses Mikhalkov’s recent films from the point of view of reflections upon the 20^th century. Russia is obviously Mikhalkov’s primary interest but he also deals with common issues both in moral and the political-historical perspective. He is interested in a clash of a pre-Revolution Russia with a communist Russia (A Slave of Love, Burnt by the Sun and Five Evenings), and the latter appears as a barren and uprooted world of false values. Western style patterns, which are adapted to Russian reality together with changing morals, bring chaos to human lives. In that situation, the past (a tsarist Russia of Barber of Siberia and Chekhov’s Russia of Burnt by the Sun) is idealized. It is first of all true of both a mythical unity between the private and public life. Contemporary world „is out of form”. Mikhalkov tells about disharmony and sense of loss on the eve of the fall of the Soviet Union in Anna: Mikhalkov often makes it clear in his films that this is the culture of the East that can offer much to the West (Dark Eyes or Hitch-hiking). He calls for return to fundamental values, pure emotions, religion and nature, and is fully aware of the fact that he runs the risk of being suspected of naivety.