Review of Nicholas and Alexandra

I really, really, really, enjoyed this film. Derived from apparent primary sources this was a film that portrayed history from the side of the czar. A side that, perhaps, doesn't get told very often. This film isn't partisan in it's support of the Czar, but it makes a point that the Czar and his family suffered an grotesque death at the hands of overzealous and bloodthirsty revolutionaries. According to film even the Central committee wanted the Czar back in Moscow for trial. It remains to be seen whether the Czar or his family would have fared any better than they did.

Lavishly costumed, decorated, and set the film reveals the Czar and the Russian nobility in all it's grandeur, grotesque or not. Lawrence Olivier puts in a cameo appearance and the performances are not great, but they are not bad. The film doesn't have the intense passion of Doctor Zhivago, but it does have the feeling of historical change. That the characters place in society was changing dramatically, even if the events, as portrayed in the film, were not as celebrated as in Warren Beatty's Reds which presented the revolution in grandiose exposition. I suppose that's the point of the film, that the revolution was not felt by the Czar and his family as much as it was endured.

The production comes across as Zhivago-like. It is against the Soviet experiment. It has some good shots, but unfortunately the man behind the camera was no David Lynch. It doesn't have those incredible wide angle shots of the Russian tundra like Lynch so masterfully presented in Zhivago. I was particularly peeved by the shots where the Czar and Czarina go into their hemophiliac son's bedroom. They are in a totally different location, but enter a very similar door at the same angle. It was like a repeat in two, supposedly, different locations. Also, there aren't any tight close-ups of the Czar alone or with the Czarina. It would have made the emotional quality of their relationship much more intense. Yet, it could have been a qualitative choice about not being too much like Zhivago which had been made only a few years before this film.

Some of the acting and writing was quesitonable too. Josef Stalin makes an appearance than disappears altogether from the film. Strange. It's very odd to introduce him and only have him say one line. Lenin is portrayed in lengthier scenes, but, the revolution gets scant attention. This is no Eisenstein's October.

As a history buff, though, this film follows the arguments that Nicholas was a weak Czar who made bad decisions as the Czar and led the country to ruin. Russian history fans would really enjoy this film. It could serve as a source for a course about Russian history.

Review of The Cherry Orchard

This was an adaptation from the play by Anton Chekhov. It had a lot of high quality drama and incipient criticism of the pre-revolution Russian aristocracy which I enjoyed. Perhaps that was the best part of the film. Watching the aristocrats struggle to deal with change was excruciating and heartbreaking, but proved for great entertainment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the use of symbolism in the representation of the cherry orchard as a thing of something close with nature, but is eventually chopped down to make way for vacation cottages that may or may not prove a good investment. Not only the representation, but also the the main character's reaction to the trees being chopped down. It was like a part of herself was being chopped off.

I thought this film aptly described changes that were ongoing in Russia during Chekhov's time. The industrial revolution, however lopsided or in whatever form, came to Russia. The train sounds like an alarm during the play and it is a business man who buys the estate from bankrupt aristocrats who are unable to maintain their lifestyle. I think that was, perhaps, the main theme of the film. Modernization had come to Russia and the old ways of doing things were being broken down; the aristocracy, landed estates, inherited status all rendered obsolete by the train, the liberation of the serfs, and market economics.