Tikhiy Don

This is how old time well done propaganda was made, with emotion, with history, with characters wearing their hearts on the outside, with a story that binds the good and the bad in myriad ways, taking the viewer through all the mistakes one could think of doing in relationship with challenging the totalitarian party, and then learning how the "right ways".

The story feels real, even though, for myself, coming from a communist country, it is clearly plastic fantastic, but it represents the idealistic expectations of how to have the community behave in relationship to the party ideals.

All in all, one should watch it, immerse in it, but not lose the sight of a propaganda product. But very well done.

Those Soviets surely were not holding back spending their rubles on large scale productions at the time. This over 6 hour long epic production is not just epic in its running time. It's an epic movie in basically all of its sequences and the movie gets filled with some impressive battle sequences as well. The Soviets were basically the pioneers in how large scale battles and battle sequences in general got brought to the screen. Another and even better example (and longer) of this is the even larger 1967 Soviet movie production of war and peace; "Voyna i mir".

The way I see this movie it's basically a tribute to the Cossacks. They get presented as a proud, noble and hard working community of farmers, who fight and give their lives for mother Russia in its most dyer times. The backbone of Russia so to speak. Hyme to the Cossacks could had been a title for this time.

Appearantly there also is a short version of this all somewhere available for the international market, which is a good thing. Although the story is always great, 6 hours is of course a long time to watch anything. I can also imaging an 2 hour movie telling exactly the same story and just as good. The movie perhaps repeat itself too often and all that at times seems to be happening are a bunch of characters sitting around either eating, drinking or being depressed.

But no, it's not like the movie ever turns into a weak one. It's far too well done for that, even when the movie is turning slow. Its story and characters always make sure that you'll stay interested throughout.

A real large scale cinematic accomplishment about love and war, in the early 20th century southern Russia countryside.

10/10

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SYNOPSIS The lives and loves of Russian Cossacks living on the eastern steps of Russia during the Russian Revolution.

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER How events beyond our control and the judgment of others shape our lives in the long term. No matter how hard we try, sometimes fate controls our destiny.

PROS AND CONS This is a great film, not because of it's acting or screenplay, but because it shows the western world that there were important events in the past that we have little knowledge of. It opens a doorway to us that we never knew existed and lets us glimpse some of the reasons that others think differently than we do.

During the late 1950 the Soviet Union was keen to copy everything that the west did regarding popular culture to show that they could do it just as well as the Americans and the Europeans. They sort of had a chip on their shoulder and wanted to prove that they were good enough to run with the big boys. In response to films such as "Ben Hur" and "Gone With The Wind", they geared up their own state sponsored film industry to produce 'epics'. This is one of them. Five and a half hours of the Russian experience in grand scope and scale.

Some have said that this is the Russian version of "Gone With The Wind", but it is more closely tied to "Dr. Zhivago" in theme and tone. The film deals with a portion of history rarely seen in the west. The internal struggles of a nation in the midst of Civil War in what could best be described as the Wild West of Russia.

This film is long with slow pacing. Russian cinema does not move a story along at a fast pace. Characters are built slowly and relationships between them are complex and wide ranging. The scenery is beautiful but sparse, as befits the Russian hinterlands. This is mostly a rural 'people' film, without much else to distract the audience, such as machinery or large scenes in cities. It is intimacy played out on a very broad canvas.

One of the more peculiar things about this version of the film is the narration. The film is shown in it's original language with no subtitles. The characters are narrated, not voiced over. So when someone speaks, it is in their native tongue, and then an English voice speaks what they are saying, sort of like you are reading their mind in delayed time. It preserves more of the feel of the film, but takes a little getting used to.

The other thing that was noticeable about the film was the Foley work. Sounds such as breaking glass or gun shots were VERY loud and distracted from the film at times. In a fist fight early in the film, the sounds of fists hitting the actors faces sounded like a sack of rice dropped from two stories up and hitting a wooden floor.

Unless you watch this film very closely, without distraction, it is easy to get lost in the complexity of the story. I was often left wondering who were the Reds (Communists) were and who were the Whites (Loyalists) and who was fighting whom. This film assumes that the audience has a good understanding of this time in Russian history, much like most American audiences have a good understanding of who Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere were.

What this film left me with was a better understanding of the mind set of the Russian people and how they perceive their world and their place in it. They are pragmatic for a reason and see the journey of life as a hard and difficult thing. There is no "pursuit of happiness" in their character. There is only finding happiness where it lays and enjoying it while you can.

This is a 6 hour flick of three episodes. 1 Pre WW1, the way of life,the lives and loves of the rural Cossack village. 2 Mobilization, WW1, defeat 3 The end of WW1, revolution,chaos, civil war, changing fortunes, Bolshevik Victory. The turbulence of Cossack life during this time.A bit of propaganda,but who cares? This is the Russian Gone With the Wind.As good and maybe better. A vanished world. I had seen it before,but this adaptation was better.Maybe the other was edited different or the subtitles are better? The flow of the story was better.Several characters from the home village appear again and again during the film. The main character is Grigory, a young rather wild Cossack, his next door married lover, his family selected wife.His large family gets a lot of time in this.A rather boring life is soon interrupted by war,revolution,counter revolution , Bolsheviks, white Russians,bandits and Communists. As things change, Grigory switches sides, his family and the Cossacks way of life is ruined. He loses everything. Well filmed,well acted,excellently scored, a cast of thousands.A classic Russian epic. Well worth watching. Epic War, history and love.You can't beat the combination.

Almost six hour long Russian epic about Grigori Melekhov and the course of his life over the ten years from 1912 to 1922. Dealing with not only his personal life but the life of his town as the First World War, the Soviet Revolution, the civil war that followed and their aftermath impact on everyone living in Russia, and in particular in his Cossack town on the Don River. The story begins as Grigori starts an affair with the married Aksiniya, who's husband is away with the rest of Cossacks. Its an affair that is far from secret and who's fall out will affect everyone for years to come, it is also the center of the story which shifts gears as Grigori tries to find his place in the world, in the Czarist army, in the Red Army and even with the Whites.

Think of this as movie as immersion tank. This is a movie that picks you up and drops you into a particular time and place and keeps you there for its entire running time. Told, at times, through a series of five or ten minute scenes that move the plot along through time this is in episodic tale that doesn't feel as such. Its clear from each scene whats transpired in the interim and there is no need for explanations. Occasionally jumps in time and place are filled in by a title over the establishing shot. The film puts the viewer into the towns, homes and battlefields where the story transpires in a way that few films ever have. Its beautiful to look at with every shot worthy of being hung on the wall. This is a movie for those who want to sit and disappear into some place far away from todays world.

As a technical achievement the film is amazing, it looks great, the acting is wonderful, the music first rate. The movie for the most part hooks you and drags you along through its decade long story. Lets face it almost no film has ever tried to tell a story this big with out cutting it up into little pieces and it losing something (Consider that the original release of this film in the west was cut by almost four hours for release). Its amazing to see what the film makers have done.

On the level of entertainment I'm of mixed emotions. On some levels this is very much an epic soap opera, the film is ultimately concerned with who loves whom, who is cheating on whom, and all of the emotions that are so ingrained in human nature.Certainly this is not your typical romance, not only does the film have other things on its mind, but there is also a ten year arc to consider, ten years where the course of a country and the world was forever altered. And thats part of the problem for me. The film, which is broken into three parts, has almost three different feels and focuses. The first is the romances and its almost a self contained film about the various players trying to find love. The second part of the film concerns the First World War and the halcyon days of the early revolution, here there is a great deal of political discussion and it makes the already slow pace of the film seem even slower. The last part of the film concerns the revolution and the civil war that followed. Here we have a blending of politics and humanity and it makes for odd an odd mix as emotion crashes against propaganda. While I was happy to follow along I was also wondering if the film hadn't lost its way.

Do I like the film? Yes. I don't love it. I can honestly say that while it is a great achievement I think that its not going to be everyone's cup of tea. There is something the film that seems to be very rooted in the Russian experience, and in particular the experience of those that lived through or were affected by the time period covered in the story. The film is also deliberately paced which many people will take a slow and feel is the kiss of death (especially at five plus hours). I understand that but would argue with out the pacing you wouldn't really feel like you're in the place where the story is happening. And the soap opera nature of the events will also weed out some who want "real" life. I didn't mind it and just let the film do what its going to do.

Is the film worth seeing? Yes, if you're willing to give yourself over to it, perhaps on three nights. I don't know if its one of the great films of world cinema, but its certainly a unique one. If you click with it I'm almost certain that for the period its running you'll be in a little cossack town somewhere along the Don.