For MT

“Burnt by the Sun 2” has had poor reviews and not done as well as expected at the box office since its release.

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The Cannes jury will get the chance to judge Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun 2” this Saturday, as the director attempts to repeat the international success of the original film but many wonder what the international reaction will be after the film’s mauling at the box office and by the press in Russia.

The jury will get to see a pared-down version of the film, two hours instead of the three hours that failed to inspire Russian moviegoers.

Despite masses of slavish publicity on state television, Mikhalkov’s wartime epic failed to convince local audiences and has made just over $7 million at the box office since its release April 22, meaning that it is unlikely to recoup its cost of close to $50 million.

Mikhalkov defended the film in a news conference last week.

“For me, as an artist, the numbers at the box office don’t matter that much. I think this movie has a long life, as many of my films, and there will be interest in it for a long time.”

The film also got an overwhelming negative reaction in the press from reviewers.

One of the most devastating critiques was by writer Dmitry Bykov in Novaya Gazeta. “Mikhalkov’s cinematography is a weird substance that contains Soviet, Russian and evangelical symbols, Stalin and anti-Stalin cliches, pieces of somebody else’s concepts and quotes from somebody else’s masterpieces,” he wrote. “There is not a hint of solidity and sense. It is purely a disintegration of consciousness that has lost any understanding of the world and of itself.”

Mikhalkov said the film being chosen for the Cannes Film Festival was more important than what critics have said.

“I’m amazed how the fact that a Russian movie has been invited to such a prestigious competition, was missed in the wave of criticism toward “Burnt by the Sun 2,” Mikhalkov told reporters.

“It’s a film that is going to represent Russia, and it is an honor. People seem to completely miss the point and its advantages for the country and Russian cinematography,” he said. “It’s very weird that very few people see poetry in my film. It’s not just a horror movie, I put a lot of poetry into it.”

Newspapers also reported that the reaction of many World War II veterans was negative. One reviewer on Afisha magazine’s web site wrote of how his grandmother, a pilot in the war, reacted during the film at a scene involving pilots.

“She is 88, a very cultured and intellectual woman, and she shouted out loud ‘What Sh**!’ The whole cinema — about 10 people — applauded,” the reviewer wrote.

Supporters of Mikhalkov have pushed his chances at the festival. Vesti called it the “intrigue” of the festival, and others have pointed to the fact that the film is the last one shown in the competition, a scheduling that some consider gives it an advantage because it will be the freshest film in the minds of the jury. Komsomolskaya Pravda tipped the film for a prize.

More cynical critics point to the big PR campaign backing the film.

“Everybody [in Cannes] will go see the movie,” Anton Dolin wrote in Gazeta.ru. “Even those, who will miss other contest movies, will watch Mikhalkov’s … I don’t remember any promo-campaign comparable.”

French newspapers have questioned why the film made it into the competition, with the Liberation newspaper describing the selection as “mysterious,” Variety web site reported.

PR campaign or not, Mikhalkov may not be the Russian-speaking director who leaves the festival with a prize, as Sergei Loznitsa is also in the running.

Loznitsa, who moved to Germany from St. Petersburg in 2001, made the competition with his first feature film. “My Joy,” a Ukrainian-German-Dutch co-production, is a tale of a truck driver who gets lost and ends up in a Russian village where grim adventures begin. Among the actors in the film is Romania’s Vlad Ivanov, who starred in “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days,” winner of the Cannes festival’s Palme d’Or in 2007, and Olga Shuvalova, who was in Valeria Gai Germanica’s much-praised film about young Muscovites “Everybody Dies But Me.”

Jill Jacob, the festival’s president, called the movie one of the most unexpected and interesting films of the festival. The film was set to be shown late Wednesday.