Guerra e pace

It is difficult for an Indian to write a laudable review for this grandiose series after so many ethnic Russians have written brutally critical ones. Still I will try. I have watched both Bondarchuk's Soviet production of 1960s and this particular one. Let me put it like this. The Soviets (who tried hard to reproduce the aristocratic milieu of the Russian Empire of early 19 century) did their best and failed. May be it can be explained that under Lenin and Stalin they managed to execute all real Russian aristocrats - so there were no nobles left to tell them how the high life folks really behaved. I hear the only expert from "old" Russia they could unearth was the widow of the executed tsarist admiral Kolchak (even she was condemned to some 18 years in various GULAG camps). In this series the motley crew of European star actors and gifted Russian extras surprisingly create a very sophisticated and warm world of Russian nobility which is quite believable for a fan of classic Russian culture like me. Two grades are off due to poorly staged battle scenes and outlandish Russian hussars's braids (unlike the Mongols their elite cavalry never wore braids, especially in the 19 century).

I am a bit surprised at how hard everyone is on this little mini-series. I have viewed a number of the previous efforts of putting War and Peace on the screen, and actually think that these folks did not do a bad job! While Russians may be justifiably distressed at the international, non-Russian cast, as an American viewer who has seen some of these actors in British, Italian, and American films, I found the cast completely engaging in this production. The cast may not have the right hair color, as previous posts have noted, but in many ways they are true to the spirit of Tolstoy's work, and even manage to breathe their own life into the roles as well. I actually think Clemence Poesy is stunning and believable as Natasha, for example. This very young, granted inexperienced actress, caught some of the freshness, innocence, joie de vivre etc., required for the role, and then summoned the passion and emotion later on to make her "transgression" believable. And what about the location shooting?-- and the beautiful lighting and camera work at those locations? I thought it was head and shoulders above the cinematography of the Hepburn/Fonda version, etc. I was astonished at some of the previous comments about the bad dancing, too: the Natasha/Andrei dance at the ball was one of the loveliest and most atmospheric period dance scenes I've seen on film in recent years. (All the recent Jane Austen films should take note!) My only complaint is that as an American it was very hard to track down a copy that would play on my Region 1 DVD.

I have just seen the second part of the series. I read the book some time ago so I can compare it to this great story by Lew Tolstoy. What can I say is that the movie lacks the epic size of the story. Historical events were in Tolstoy "War and peace" as important as personal stories which seem to be in this movie the only important. This way the story has turned into a kind of melodrama - just another marital and love stories, without big depth. Most of the characters are not very expressive. I was very surprised of the look of Natasha as I remember her from the book description as very simple, joyful and black haired girl. Prince Bolkonsky is not very interesting and lacks any charisma. I like Pierre Bezuchow and can sympathize with princess Marie. And I can agree: lack of Russian language in any form is very painful. But what can we expect from television drama? Nothing more like the soap opera. And that's it. If I am wrong not having seen yet 3rd and 4th part - apologize.

I'm not saying it is easy to adapt and film a behemoth work like War and Peace. But they managed to get the production values fine, eg costumes, most of the architecture. Even battle scenes are not bad considering., But this production is ruined by awful acting and direction. And I don't mean a few or most of the actors -- but all of them.

This story is so epic, it is remade all the time. Even right now! This 2007 version has very good qualities, the most obvious being the sets, the locations and the costumes. The worst was the actors which are mostly very good but sometimes looked like only one take was made. The snow is also often paper. The fights were often not looking real at all. All in all, I liked it enough.