Burnt by the Sun

Interpretation of Nikita Mikhalkov's Burnt by the Sun really must begin after the film itself has ended, when the director dedicates the film to "all those who were burnt by the sun of the revolution". This homage to the tragic byproducts of Soviet rule in Russia is largely driven by its characters, with the focus of course being Kotov and Mitya. Although we do not realize it initially, Kotov is the hero, not the charismatic Mitya. Col. Kotov is a kind, loving, family man, who cares for the people around him as exemplified through his interactions with his family and more particularly when he stops the military from running through the peasants' wheat fields. He is the ideal symbol for the Socialist realist aesthetic, a man of the people who's loyalty is to the Soviet party, and as such he has prospered. Aside, of course, from being a hero.
Mitya on the other hand is more complex. He is also a byproduct of the revolution, but he is representative of the darker necessity driving the Soviet regime. We come to understand during the film that Mitya was the former lover of Marusia and that for an unknown reason he was forced to leave many years prior and somehow Kotov was involved. Although Mitya appears to be bright and cheery, but we come to realize that he is only momentarily relishing in the life he feels should have been his own, and to add insult to injury the man whose life it actually is had something to do with Mitya's having to leave. Mitya's involvement in counter-espionage ultimately forces him to bring in Kotov, but you can not really sense malice or disdain for Kotov in Mitya, which implies that Mitya is not necessarily the villain. The true villain is, as we learn when the banner of Stalin's face rises from the hill at the end, is the system itself. The level of paranoia created by Stalin's Soviet regime causes it to turn eve on its most decorated heroes. The floating sun is at this point just the symbolic manifestation of this paranoia, for as glorious as the revolution was, so the dysfunction of the system increased.