Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago; historical drama / romance, UK / Italy / USA, 1965; D: David Lean, S: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Tom Courtenay, Siobhan McKenna, Ralph Richardson, Rita Tushingham, Klaus Kinski

Officer Yevgraf talks with Tonya, a young worker who doesn't know her parents. But he does: they were Lara and Dr. Yuri Zhivago, his half brother. Yevgraf tells their life story: Zhivago is an orphan and grows up in the family of his father's friend Gromeko, thus engaging out of gratitude to his daughter Tonya in Moscow. But then he meets and gets infatuated by Lara, who shot and wounded the rich Viktor Komarovsky, the bully who raped her. In 1 9 1 7, the October revolution starts and Lara marries Antipov who leaves her for his political ambitions. On the Russian battlefront, Zhivago and Lara meet again, but he already has a son, Sasha. Due to the fact that the new repressive Bolshevik-Communist government finds his poetry unsuitable, Zhivago, his child, wife, and her father leave with a train for a city in the Ural region. World War I ends, but the Russian Civil War wages on. Zhivago meets Lara again and this time they start a relationship. One day he gets forcefully drafted by the Partisans, but manages to return back to Lara, only to find out his family has left to live in exile. Since the government is after Antipov, Zhivago persuades Lara to find safety and flee with Viktor. Decades later, when Zhivago spots her on the street, he dies from sadness.

Excellent film that was loved by everyone, David Lean's epic „Dr. Zhivago“ is an interesting example of a quality made book adaptation thanks to emotions and a nice visual style. The drama set, in the backdrop of the October Revolution, is magnificent and indestructible, even though it avoids over-the-top drama or dangerous action sequences on the battlefield since it is introverted and shows two people in love, in quiet suffering since they are both already in marriage with someone else. The landscapes are wonderful and a few shots of them cowered entirely by white snow create a stylish monochromatic, clean exterior that reminds of white sand dunes from Lean's earlier „Lawrence of Arabia“. Even though the movies were still tame back in those days, some scenes are quite daring, like the one where Victor (Rod Steiger) forcefully throws Lara on bed and starts kissing her—she fights him at first, but then she somehow starts enjoying it and embraces him. In the next scene, Victor leaves and tells her: „Don't call this a rape. That would flatter us both“. The movie also elaborately captures the mood of the unsatisfied Russian citizens who were disgusted by the Tsar and his monarchy: on the battlefront, where one high ranking officer goes to motivate the angry soldiers to fight some more, he gives an elevated propaganda speech before he is interrupted when he accidentally slips into the barrel he was standing on. One soldier just shoots him on the spot and the officer sinks into the barrel while his red blood mixes itself with water.

But Lean and his screenwriter Robert Bolt do not hesitate to show the other, grim side of the new Soviet Communist dictatorship, which end ups even worse: when Zhivago, who was quite wealthy as a doctor, returns from the front back to his home, a rather big mansion, the Communist representatives inform him that his huge home must take 13 more families that should live there, and later on his property is divided between numerous poor people. The finale where the closing credits are „flowing“ simultaneously with the direction of the waterfalls is also impressive and sums up everything down to a T: it is not only a story about how Zhivago and Lara missed out on their life which passed them by, but also on Russia as a whole, that wasted its entire 20 century on a failed Communist system. By its theme of a couple prevented to stay together by circumstances, it reminds of Lean's earlier "Brief Encounter". Some critics lamented about a few kitschy moments, the unusual transformation of the British into the Russian culture, some mechanical events that don't seem realistic or emotional, some stiff acting typical for the 60s, slightly overlong 190 minutes of running time, and the unusual choice of Omar Sharif to play the title role, even though looking at it today, the cast seems impeccable. The movie won several awards, it sold over 124,000,000 tickets at the North American box office, making it the 8th highest grossing movie of the 20th century, while actor Ralph Richardson as Gromeko and actress Julie Christie as Lara were especially singled out for praise by the film critics.

Grade:+++