A Soviet ‘Red Western’ classic. The Russian civil war is over, but Basmachi gangs still roam Central Asia. Fyodor Ivanovich Sukhov, a Red Army soldier, intends to return home to his beloved wife Katerina Matveyevna, but unexpected events force him to stay in the desert. The brutal bandit Abdullah and his gang kill everyone in their path and threaten to destroy the women of their leader’s former harem.
Fun facts: Film scholars believed that White Sun of the Desert had much in common with such films as The Passenger by Antonioni, The Sheltering Sky by Bertolucci, and Soviet movie The Thirteen by Mikhail Romm. In 2021, a distant Western reference might be Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino. Therefore, the genre of the movie is vague. Film critics define the movie as a western, a red western (or eastern), and even an action flick. Many quotes from White Sun of the Desert have become catchphrases in Russian culture. The song Your Noble Highness Lady Fortune, written especially for the movie, became a hit.
The Red Western as a genre, with films such as The Elusive Avengers, Dauria, At Home Among the Strangers, and White Sun of the Desert, to name a few, became a relevant phenomenon in the Soviet film industry, causing a wave of imitations in the 60-70s, both in central studios and in film studios of the Central Asian republics.
Year of production: 1969
Directed by: Vladimir Motyl
Written by: Valentin Ezhov, Rustam Ibragimbekov
Director of photography: Eduard Rozovsky
Music: Isaac Schwartz
Production designer: Valery Kostrin, Bella Manevich
Starring: Anatoly Kuznetsov, Nikolay Godovikov, Galina Luchai, Spartak Mishulin, Kakhi Kavsadze, Pavel Luspekayev, Tatiana Fedotova
The film was digitally restored by Mosfilm Cinema Concern
Find out more: cg.mosfilm.ru/en
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