Die Sonne, die uns täuscht - Die Zitadelle

When Michalkov returned years later to his apparently most famous work, Burnt by the Sun, he miraculously revived all of his dead heroes and filmed Burnt by the Sun 3. He encountered overwhelming rejection from film critics and a significant portion of film fans. The criticisms that appeared among the reviews I considered to be a certain form of posing and I tended to take a protective stance towards the film. I simply tried to discover and highlight the positive aspects of it. The film allows us to hope for a better conclusion to the trilogy with its open ending, and although it undeniably represents a significant decline in quality in all aspects, it is still a great war spectacle. Burnt by the Sun 3 is lucky in that the film fans who rejected Burnt by the Sun 2 did not bother to watch the final part at all, so paradoxically, it has a higher rating on FilmBooster than Burnt by the Sun 2, which, from my point of view, is more acceptable. Only in Burnt by the Sun 3 did all of Nikita Michalkov's vices and filmmaking failures fully manifest themselves in all their nudity. What I would criticize in the final part had already appeared in Michalkov's previous films, but here it takes on monstrous proportions. All that whiny melodrama, sentimentality, and pathos have swollen to terrifying dimensions. What's worse, Michalkov sells the idiosyncrasies of the Russian soul and the specifics of Soviet society in such a way that the film seems absurd and the behavior of its characters is constantly out of touch. The film also bores for most of its inflated duration. The final twenty-minute transformation of the citadel cast with the help of 15,000 wooden fittings turns the drama into an unintentional slapstick that can entertain. Unlike the second part, I find no excuse here, and with its terrifying literalness, Burnt by the Sun 3 represents a slap in the face to Michalkov's lifelong body of work. This is simply horrible, and I deeply regret that I allowed myself to be lured in. Overall impression: 10% for the production design. (17.11.2017)

I can't help but like the third sequel, and I liked it a lot. Even though it’s different from the first film, very different in fact, the opening scene in the trenches is so beautifully Russian-bizarre that it got to me. So did the ending of the film and indeed the entire trilogy, which I liked very much overall. (10.09.2017)

I should have spared myself the last part of the Burnt by the Suntrilogy, full of sentimentality and pathos, because I had to try very hard to finish it. I was annoyed by the absurdity of quite a large part of the scenes, which often turned into ridiculousness. I wasn't exactly blown away by the performances of Nikita Michalkov and his daughter either. As far as quality is concerned, this film is not even close to the second film and it is pointless to compare it with the first film. Because then I would have to think hard about giving it that one extra star. (05.07.2020)

The third instalment had countless flaws again, but the previous one annoyed me more. Anyway, I'm glad that the fate of the Kotov clan has finally come to a conclusion. I only wish it had happened in the original film, as Nikita Mikhalkov intended. I wouldn't have had to watch a weird parody on war in both the following films. I wonder how the landmine action turned out. Wasn’t that the reason why the upper half of General Kotov's body was sticking out of the commander’s hatch of the front tank at the end? (09.03.2018)