I fratelli Karamazov

Dostoevsky crossed the bounds of ordinary life and demands gods and devils to descend and speak to him. You can almost see Nietzsche writing on his superhuman nearby.

Thats a demanding story to picture, indeed. But this work from 1969 almost succeed at that. Only two flaws you can spot! First, for 40 opening minutes, there will be too much theatricality. But later on, this fades away.

And the religious brother, Alyosha, is seriously miscast. Instead of bearing passion and superhuman will, we see Myagkov quite the opposite. There will be glimpses of true Alyosha, but most of the time he is misbehaving.

Other than that, it is very good film.

Some good performances, particularly Mark Prudkin as Fyodor Pavlovich, but the film's overbearing theatricality works against the drama of Dostoevsky's novel. The staginess is also not supported by the production design so the storm and stress performances feel ill matched to their realistic backgrounds. There's not much of a cinematic style to the film either and what there is is rather unimaginative. There's very little humor in the film for an adaptation of a novel that can be deeply and unsettlingly funny. And then there's the strange, wrong headed casting of Andrey Myagkov as Alyosha, arguably the central point of view of the novel. Myagkov's Alosha is a doltish void, somewhat of a holy fool, a characterization that might be found in other Dostoevsky novels but not in this one. All in all, a disappointment, not as embarrassing as the Yul Brenner adaptation but just as vulgar in its own way.

If you saw the more famous version of this adaptation of Dostoeyevsky's novel with Yul Brynner from 1956, you'll know the gist of this story of the eponymous siblings "Dimitri" (Mikhail Ulyanov), aspiring journalist "Ivan" (Kirill Lavrov) and "Alyosha" (Andrey Myagkov). Thanks to their late mother, they are from a well to do family and as you might expect have grown up talking completely differing paths in life. The latter man has taken to a life in the church, the former is a bit of a wastrel and "Ivan" is more the philosophical type. Meantime, their grizzly father "Fyodor" (Mark Prudkin) has pretty much abandoned the gambling soldier "Dimitri". There's precious little love spread amongst this family, save for perhaps the young "Aloysha" whose general attitude to life has an innocent and forgiving naivety to it, but otherwise these are men increasingly separated by the same genes. As the story unfolds, there are complexities with not just the familial relationships, but with the women in their lives. "Dimitri", especially, sees his gambling compromise his own love with "Grushenka" (Lionella Pyryeva) which gives his father a mischievous opportunity to try to finally thwart his son's profligate ways. This is a decently faithful interpretation of the book that's told in three chapters as the brothers age and their relationships ebb and flow. It's probably the effort from Myagkov that resonated more with me as a man of innate spirituality who has to come to terms with not just an evolving society but with a questioning of his own faith that he's really not equipped to handle. Prudkin also delivers strongly as the father and the story itself combines elements of ambition, lust and love with religiosity and, to a degree, freedom that are quite thought-provokingly resented. Of course it's meant to be a piece of entertainment, so there are corners cut from the original text and maybe just a little stereotyping disguised as cinematic licence amidst a production that can be a bit dry and humourless at times, but it's still quite a provocative, even exacting, film to watch and it might just encourage you to read the novel.

In a period where Russian film making was not distinguished, their classics adaptations were the peak achievements. Apparently the one film by Bolshoi dignitary Lavrov, who also plays Ivan, this Dostoievsky production makes a stagey first impression, not unlike co-director Pyryev's version of THE IDIOT, but this is a much better film.

Concepts like Lavrov's assertion, in the presence of the priests, that morality is a product of immortality or Dimitri's claim that Korkoshko has never forgiven him for proving more ethical than herself, when he refused to take advantage of her need for money, are set up in the best printed page tradition and then elaborated in a way that we are not used to seeing in film, even those drawing on their connection with serious literature. The film form does rise to demands like the gypsy singer party or the diabolical illusion but these are not the highlights. The work's strength is in putting on screen ideas and states of mind most makers would find too demanding.

Not blessed with subtlety and in fuzzy Sov Colour, visual trimmings are minimal - ducks splashing in a pond, singing monks, a windmill distant in the fog. The weight of the piece is carried by the distinctive cast performing the Dostoievski text full blast.

Respectable versions like the Fritz Kortner or Yul Bryner films, that try to compress the piece into normal feature length, are obliterated in any comparison.

for to be more a duel of ideas than a version for large public. for the way to translate the universe of the novel in a dramatic and subtle definition of characters , more as presences or symbols. for the right Ivan and father Zosima. for a form of delicacy to explore a world so simple and with profound roots. it is a classic. not surprising. except the meet with atmosphere of an universe who becomes more than special but propose, in inspired manner, the return to the Dostoyevski questions and expected answers.