"He's Russian. That explains a lot." With this slogan - and the $45 million film it promotes - director Nikita Mikhalkov aims to instill a feeling of dignity and patriotism in his fellow countrymen and challenge Hollywood's popular depiction of Russians as bad guys. For many, Mikhalkov's "The Barber of Siberia," which premieres in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, carries another hidden message: Mikhalkov is offering himself as the new tsar. His solution to the problems of contemporary Russia is to return to the pre-Revolutionary values of Orthodoxy and monarchy. The Russia depicted by the nation's top director is indeed a great and powerful country - despite its hard-drinking generals, officers exiled to Siberia and wild, uncontrolled passions that rage across all levels of society. Political statements aside, the three-hour epic of love and self- sacrifice told against the historical backdrop of Alexander III's rule is an emotionally intense, touching and beautiful movie. Written by Rustam Ibragimbekov, "Barber of Siberia" tells the story of officer cadet Andrei Tolstoy, (Oleg Menshikov), who falls in love with Jane, an American woman played by Julia Ormond. Jane is posing as the daughter of eccentric American inventor Douglas McCracken (Irish actor Richard Harris), who is building a tree-chopping machine that gives the film its name. Jane's task is to persuade government officials to support McCracken's forest-shaving project. Her target is General Radlov, who happens to be the director of Andrei's military school. The general - colorfully played by the great actor Alexei Petrenko as a vain but likable character subject to violent drinking binges - falls in love with the pretty foreigner. Thus the love triangle is formed. In the ensuing action, Andrei - a young, naive aristocrat - shows his noble character by sacrificing himself to protect the dignity of Jane, a cynical, chain-smoking American businesswoman. Sound unlikely? At least the cast aimed for authenticity: Menshikov and the four other actors playing cadets lived at the Kostroma military academy for almost three months to absorb the spirit of camaraderie among officers. They probably didn't absorb their modern manners - the cadets portrayed here are educated young lads who speak several languages. Thankfully, even their English is good, as is that of most of the other actors who speak it through 70 percent of the movie. For Menshikov, 38, his role as a naive 20-year-old is clearly a stretch. He is famous for his complex portrayal of an NKVD officer in Mikhalkov's 1995 Oscar-winning film "Burnt by the Sun," and was offered the role of Andrei 10 years ago soon after the screenplay was written. Despite his age, Menshikov coped well with the role; only his eyes betrayed a greater maturity. Ormond, chosen for her "virtuoso technique" and British training, gives a generally strong performance, though she fails to bring across the tragedy in the ending. Mikhalkov's positive Russian characters are an obvious effort to counterbalance Hollywood's depiction of Russians as flathead mafiosi. Although the director has been criticized at home for pandering to Western audiences, he said he refused to follow the advice of actor/director Kevin Costner, who told him that Americans were portrayed too harshly. Costner thought American audiences wouldn't be pleased with the portrayal of Jane as an easy woman and a scene depicting an American sergeant as an ignorant buffoon. "Look what kind of Russians Hollywood shows in movies like "Armageddon" and "The Saint," Mikhalkov said at a news conference before the Moscow premiere Feb. 20. "It is inadmissible to keep talking about ourselves like we are people without any dignity." While some critics have called the film a "great masterpiece," others have called "Barber of Siberia" ideological, pompous and rife with overacting. But despite a number of weak turns in the plot, there are touching moments capable of leaving the audience red-eyed. In any case, Mikhalkov says he is thinking of filming a sequel. So instead of running for president, maybe the director will stick to what he does best.

Submitted by Sanochki