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.