White Sun of the Desert Blu-ray Review

Deaf Crocodile

Blu-ray Release: March 24, 2026

Video: 1.37:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Russian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 83:24

Director: Vladimir Motyl

During the Russian Civil War, a soldier named Fyodor (Anatoliy Kuznetsov) is trodding across the endless sands of Turkmenistan, desperate to get back home to his wife, when he's diverted into guarding a harem of Muslim women caught in a struggle between a renegade Red Army unit and local Basmachi guerrillas led by Abdullah (Kakhi Kavsadze). (From Deaf Crocodile’s official synopsis)

The revisionist western is, by its nature, a subversion of storytelling tradition. In America, this typically meant pushing back against the romanticized, black & white mythology of the Old West. In Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, they used American history as a backdrop while examining their own modern politics. One of the rarer examples of western revisionism came from the Soviet Union, where the iconology of the Hollywood western was typically used to explore regional history. These films, rarely seen outside of Russia, came to be known as red westerns or osterns (a portmanteau of the German word ‘ost,’ meaning ‘east,’ and English word ‘western’). It’s a shame that the ‘spaghetti’ naming convention didn’t apply to every region’s westerns, because ‘pireogi western’ has a nice ring to it.

I’m barely familiar with the subgenre myself, mostly due to lack of availability and the fact that learning all I can about European westerns is already a substantial commitment. Still, even a neophyte like myself knows the reputation of Vladimir Motyl’s quintessential ostern, White Sun of the Desert (1970). This bone-dry, sometimes absurdist, often dramatic send-up of Russian history that borrows concepts, archetypes, and visual language from Hollywood westerns, like Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959) and Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952), and Italian westerns, like Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966) and Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966). 

Tonally, White Sun of the Desert evokes the Italian comedy westerns of the same period, though it emphasizes irony over obnoxiously cartoonish contrivances and Benny Hill-style slapstick.  Co-writers Valentin Yezhov & Rustam Ibragimbekov aren’t afraid to get a little silly, despite the generally grim subject matter.  The action is minimal – Motyl doesn’t pay homage to Sam Peckinpah or the other hyperviolent westerns coming out of America around that time – but well executed with a nice sense of geography. Like Leone, he’s more interested in the setup than the execution.

While rarely explicitly surrealistic, White Sun of the Desert also has the makings of an acid western. It at least shares a lineage with Oldřich Lipský’s proto-acid western Lemonade Joe (aka: Lemonade Joe, or the Horse Opera, 1964). Lemonade Joe was made in a Soviet satellite state, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and its satirical take on the western tradition was hugely popular across the Bloc. The two films are very different – Lemonade Joe is a full-bore spoof that takes place in the American Southwest and is shot in a way that recreates the tinted look of silent era movies – but there’s a shared creative sentiment.

Video

Not surprisingly, this Soviet-made film wasn’t available on official North American VHS, but Image Entertainment did release a barebones DVD in 2004. This Blu-ray, or, rather, the previous limited edition represents the film’s first HD availability outside of Russia (I believe anywhere, but it might have been on local television at some point). There isn’t a lot of information about the transfer other than it was restored by distributor Mosfilm studios (I’m guessing in 2K, otherwise I’d be reviewing a 4K disc) and supplied directly to Deaf Crocodile.

The film is presented in 1080p and its original 1.37:1 and, as a side note, I was especially drawn to the way Motyl uses the verticality of the aspect ratio in comparison to the dramatic horizontal compositions of Sergio Leone’s scope westerns. Cinematographer Eduard Rozovsky’s sun-baked photography features lots of dynamic, high contrast range and searing colors. Details are mostly tight and clean, though there are some random shots that include haloes and similar artifacts. Shooting in the raw elements likely led to these inconsistencies and I also suspect some reels were in worse shape than others. Textures are a little soft, but this doesn’t appear to be the side effect of DNR smoothing, because grain is pretty consistent throughout. Note that day-for-night scenes tend to have the softest appearance.

Audio

White Sun of the Desert is presented in its original Russian mono in uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio. Dialogue is clean and evenly mixed (I suspect most, if not all performances were dubbed in post) without any crackle or pop. Incidental effects are softer and the sound floor is extremely low. 

Like Lemonade Joe and Enzo G. Castellari’s Keoma (1976), White Sun of the Desert could be considered a musical. There’s only really one song ("Your Noble Highness, Lady Luck,” lyrics by Bulat Okudzhava) and only one character actually sings (Pavel Vereschagin, portrayed by Pavel Luspekayev in his final film role), but verses are peppered throughout the film and set the appropriate mood. Composer Isaac Schwartz’ mellow score sounds incredibly rich and instrumentations are very neatly separated, despite the single channel treatment.

Extras

• Commentary with Rolf Giesen – The critic, historian, and author of Animation Under the Swastika: A History of Trickfilm in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (McFarland & Company, 2012), among others, explores the film’s tumultuous production, the intricacies of the plot and related themes, Motyl’s wider career, the history depicted in the film, the western tradition outside of America (including Lemonade Joe and the spaghetti westerns), the film’s popularity with Russian cosmonauts (who to this day watch it as a good luck ritual), and the lives and work of the cast & crew.

• The Revolution Has Set You Free: White Sun of the Desert and the Soviet Red Western (16:01, HD) – Film historian and critic Evan Chester takes a look at Soviet westerns, explains the difference between osterns and red westerns (the former take place in Russia, the latter in America), gender and racial politics within the film, and breaks down the career highlights of Motyl, composer Isaac Schwartz, co-writers Valentin Yezhov & Rustam Ibragimbekov, cinematographer Eduard Rozovsky, and the cast. He also draws comparisons between Fyodor and Odysseus, which I hadn’t considered, but is quite apt.

• 2026 interview with Sergey Lavrentyev (58:53, HD) – The author and red western expert is interviewed from his office at the Moscow Film Institute by Deaf Crocodile’s Dennis Bartok via Zoom. Lavrentyev discusses watching western media in the USSR, the history of Mosfilm, Motyl’s career, the impact of American westerns in Russia, and (significant to my personal interests) the fact that Leone’s For a Few Dollars More (Italian: Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Damiano Damiani’s Bullet for the General (Italian: El Chuncho, Quien Sabe?, 1966) might have been the only Italian westerns available in the Soviet Bloc at the time.

• 2025 re-release trailer

The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.