WHITE SUN OF THE DESERT (1969)

Asia, the early 1920s. The Russian Civil War is ending and a soldier named Sukhov is slowly making his way across a desert near the Caspian Sea (in what is now Turkmenistan), daydreaming of his wife back home. He almost literally stumbles across Sayid, a man buried up to his neck in the sand (pictured below) and left to die by the bandit Dzhavdet. Somewhat reluctantly, Sukhov digs him up and Sayid, who wants revenge against Dzhavdet, decides, out of gratitude, to follow Sukhov as a helpmate even as he occasionally leaves to try and find the bandit. When they meet up with a Soviet patrol, Sukhov is put in charge of taking the abandoned harem of the warlord Abdullah to a village on the coast, away from Abdullah who has already killed a couple of the wives and wants to kill the rest. In the village, the only Russian left is Pavel, a former customs agent who is more or less barricaded in a building with his wife and a lot of weaponry. Pavel is cranky and often drunk, but he takes to the young Russian soldier Petrukha because he reminds Pavel of his late son. Sukhov tries to free the women of the harem, putting up a sign outside of the museum building where they are staying that says Dormitory of Liberated Women of the East, but instead they declare themselves all to be wives of Sukhov (though Petrukha has fallen in love with one of them). When Sukhov realizes that Abdullah will be heading for the village because there is an abandoned boat near the shore that he and his men could use to leave, he plants explosives rigged to blow the boat up 42 seconds after it is started up. Abdullah shows up and his wives get trapped in a huge empty oil tank, but we know it’s just a matter of time before gunplay erupts and someone starts that ship for an explosive climax.

In Russia, this is a famous film (cosmonauts watch it the day before a takeoff) but it's barely known in the West. It belongs to the Ostern genre, essentially, an Eastern western, and with its deserts and ghost towns and horses (and camels), it does feel like a 60s-era western. I found it delightful, an odd word to use perhaps for a movie which has violence and bloodshed, and in which not all the good guys survive to the end. But the visuals are gorgeous, the characters eccentric, the lead handsome and heroic, and the story easy to follow and not always predictable. Sukhov (Anitoliy Kuznetsov) is not immediately likable, and neither is Sayid (Spartak Mishulin) or Pavel (Pavel Luspekayev), but we warm up to them after a time, though Sayid remains fairly mysterious (and, technically a spoiler, he never finds his bandit, so he still has a goal at the end). The proceedings have a surprisingly light feel, and humorous bits are sprinkled throughout. At not quite ninety minutes, the movie rarely lags, even as it doesn't feel like it's moving at a breakneck speed. The relatively spare sets are appropriate for a place that at times has a slightly dreamy and surreal atmosphere. This is one to search out. Pictured at top right are Kuznetsov and Nikolai Godovikov (as Petrukha). [Streaming]