Burnt by the Sun ending explained

What happens

Kotov is driven away and beaten, and the family's summer ends. Mitya, who was sent to arrest him, later takes his own life. A closing title reports the fates of the people we've come to love.

The last image

A closing title card, set against the film's lost summer, tells you what became of the family.

What it says

Kotov's loyalty to Stalin saves nobody, not even the man who helped build the system. By ending on loss, then fact, the film shows that the idyll was real, and that is why its destruction hurts.