Many young Russians now automatically scorn anything the authorities take pride in – like Nikita Mikhalkov's officially-blessed new war film

ST. PETERSBURG – Local authorities across Russia are putting the patriotism of the people to the test. They are asking Russians to spend 75 rubles – and three hours of their time – to go to the cinema and watch "The Ultimate Film about the Great War."

The movie in question is directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, and it's a sequel to his gloomy 1994 Oscar-winning epic of the pre-war Stalin years, Burnt by the Sun.

In the new film, Burnt by the Sun 2. Exodus, the action moves on to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Mikhalkov also stars as a purged Red Army general, Kotov, while his daughter Nadezhda is cast as a nurse. The film was released with great pomp ahead of celebrations of the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, and had its premiere at the Kremlin.

The $55 million film took 10 years to complete, but the promotion campaign began well before the premiere. In April, as anniversary festivities approached, the PR drive reached its peak. According to the Moscow-based political analysis center Medialogia, either Mikhalkov himself or information about his film appeared at least five times a day on nationwide television channels in the month of April. Often these appearances were in the guise of news.

Last year, Culture Minister Aleksandr Avdeyev announced a state-sponsored plan to fund worthy films to counteract what he called a "devastating lack of patriotism." With the release of Mikhalkov's new big-budget film, backed by state-run television and lauded by politicians, we are getting an idea of what the authorities want.

With scenes such as a Nazi pilot defecating out of his plane over Russian territory and numerous close-ups of mangled arms, legs and other body parts, the film serves as a compelling realization of the Kremlin-approved view of the war. It is the inhuman face of the war that Mikhalkov has portrayed, without telling human stories. Rather than eliciting compassion, the film was apparently meant to provoke hatred.

Now schoolchildren, soldiers, and public employees in many parts of the country, from Moscow to Vladivostok, are being told to get busy buying their cinema tickets. And although there has not been an official and open call for such a campaign, authorities in a number of regions have been orchestrating group outings to see the movie.

They appear to have taken on board the message of Vladimir Medinsky, deputy head of the Central Executive Committee of the United Russia party, who said the film is "a must-see" and that "it must receive state support for its promotion across the country." Clearly, this is the image of the war that the Russian government wishes to project to those it governs.

Mikhalkov, who is admired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, comes from a family that has catered to the authorities for decades. A talent for pleasing his political masters must run in Mikhalkov's genes. The director's father, poet Sergei Mikhalkov, wrote the text for the Soviet anthem. The anthem was dropped after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but when Putin became President he reinstated it. And he gave the elderly poet the job of rewriting the words.

Using the cinema as a propaganda tool has been popular since the times of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. Attributed to Lenin is the famous assertion that "the cinema is the most important of all the arts for us." However, Lenin's dictum is almost always quoted in that abbreviated and inaccurate version. Which is no wonder, because it reads in full: "As long as people are illiterate, of all the arts, the cinema and the circus are the most important for us."

The cinema indeed has a mighty potential for brainwashing. What is alarming is that nothing is being done to fight the political illiteracy of the Russian people. Worse, by feeding audiences with what one film critic described as "war comics promoted as a super-realistic war drama," the authorities are provoking an adverse reaction.

So perhaps we should not be surprised that Burnt by the Sun 2 has so far played to near-empty halls, with box office receipts of just $2.5 million from its opening weekend. The Russian blogosphere has been boiling with scathing comments.

"My son is in the eighth grade in a Stavropol school. Yesterday they were forced to see the dreaded Mikhalkov film," writes one blogger. "When my son protested he was told he will have to move to a new school."

"My daughter came home shivering with horror; the film made her sick," a Muscovite complains. "She told me that the teacher sympathized with them having to watch it but made it clear that the class had to obey as the decision was made well above the teacher's head."

With the Mikhalkov epic commemorating Nazi barbarity and Soviet martyrdom, the value of the defeat Russia inflicted on Hitler is being dismissed by children who are forced to watch this film and ingest its excessive propaganda. Patriotism is the love of one's native country. The PR gurus behind the promotion campaign for Burnt by the Sun 2 and the school directors who order their pupils to watch Mikhalkov's film fail to understand one simple truth: Love cannot be forced. It is a lesson they seem a long way from learning.