Burnt by the Sun

Story crossing a personal tale with the Stalinist show trials; directed and starring Nikita Milhalkov, in 1994
The direction employs a variety of middle of the road-ish techniques on a slightly overexposed film. Clearly an invisible style working with continuity, and the tradition of the bigger European productions, it has longer takes of people sitting around tables with lots of singles throughout, and a fair amount of shot-reverse.
The more distinctive techniques are a tendency to put characters forward in the frame (mild fish-eye), a penchant for extra long takes. The more interesting techniques, perhaps a little underused, are occasional loitering of the camera when the action has gone, and some pan and crane work that has a certain panache (such shots seem to often acts as marks of flair in many visually mainstream and otherwise indistinctive efforts). Indicates a narrative not quite connected to the characters, at a distance (with the critical faculties that implies).
All told, there is more than a whiff of the well-made film about this; would be fair to say it belongs squarely within the tradition of quality, in the historical film that examines political humanism. Some rather sickly family / bourgeois / humanist nostalgia, in certain scenes, as we see in some of the more expensive pieces of the French cinema.
The slightly detached attitude though isn’t a necessary part of this, so that is a little more interesting. Manages to pretty much not tell us the story throughout, clearly deliberately, though does at one point give in and resort to basically explaining the story in a rather strained device. Saying that, in this very scene there’s a nice alienating device of hiding the speaker.
There are some interesting things going on in this film. When the situation is realised as all rather nastier than it looked, a certain frisson is gained. The use of Stalin in interesting, this film is at its best when it is more on the side of ambivalence than predictability in its analysis of the period.
A really interesting story, subject, and time. Filmed in an adequate for explanation, if, with some qualifications, slightly disappointingly conservative style. Not bad, not more than a weak ‘good’.