Don Silencioso

The film contains 3 parts, each of which is close to 2 hours.

Here are what I like: 1. This film accurately depicted an agricultural society before the industrial revolution. People used oil lamps. Most people were not well educated. There was no sliced bread. You need to slice bread when you eat. People ate potato, bread, drank milk and soup. There were no in-door plumbing.

2. People's psyches were also very typical of a pre-industrial society. Everyone in the Cossack community were Orthodox Christian. The basic moral fiber was well and strong. Multi-generations lived in a large household. Young people were hooked up by marriage brokers. Young people needed family patriarch's blessing before they could marry.

In other words, you would feel people's psyches and the society at large were very much like the Chinese society before China felt the impact of industrial revolution.

I felt very familiar with the characters and their surroundings. In fact, I felt the men and women were so intimate to me, that I felt really strongly about their joy, anxiety, and anguish.

3. Politics was a central theme in this movie. The novel and the film did a great job in depicting the reality of Russia during the tumultuous years of War World I and the Civil War following the Boshevik revolution.

4. Watching the film, I hated the communists who pretended to be pacifists during War World I, and then showed their ugly face by pushing the country into a 3-year long extremely bloody civil war after War World I ended.

5. Overall, the protagonist, Grigory Melekhov, is a freedom loving, traditionalist with a humanist world view. The communists had the inhumane view of class warfare, and were power mongers.

6. It is amazing that the movie makers were able to make the movie without a single brush of communist propaganda. The movie didn't villanize either side. Nor did it promote, or aggrandize either side.

7. I didn't read the novel. It was said that the adaptation to film lost the richness of the novel. On the basis of the film, I'd say the story structure is a very good epic structure.

8. It is a very dramatic and moving story. With a lot of colorful characters, with rich and interesting characterizations.

9. The 4th DVD contains special features. There were an interview with Ellina Bystritskaya who played Aksinya and an interview with Zinaida Kirienko who played Natalya. Both interviews were done in 2002, I believe. They are quite interesting.

Here are what I felt could be better: 10. There is a soap opera feeling to the film. The characters are not very deep.

11. There were many drinking and eating scenes, which became repetitive.

12. The ending is not satisfactory. The novel was originally circulated in 1928, under Stalin's regime. It would have been banned in Soviet Union if it had a satisfactory ending to my taste. So, I really don't expect more.

13. All characters were quick at saying negative things, and none were good at saying positive things.

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.

This is one of those movies which would haunt you again and again after you watched it once. And more over -- the more you watch it the more you find something new about yourself,people and life. Thikhiy Don depicts life of two -- man and woman, their love, their hardships, their fight for their love and all this happens against the backdrop of a wide picture of life of the whole country during a very dramatical and crucial period of Russia, including WW1, civilian war,and a lot of others events. I don't know another movie where love was depicted so sincerely and so nicely as it was done here. Petr Glebov and Elina Bystritskaya not played they lived on the screen, as did the love of their heroes. The movie turned out to be very realistic, with big respect for details. Before the movie was set out actors lived several months at the khutor where events of the book really took place. A lot of beautiful Russian actors performed in this movie, each performance is a little masterpiece. The music was written by Yuriy Levitin, one of the best follower of Shostakovitch and it matches the movie very well. The director did a superb job, there are no details missed in this movie, all was in check by director, even the river itself which gave the name to the whole thing was one of the actors -- Don i mean. In my opinion it is one of the best movie made in the 20 th century. Some people could compare it with 'Gone with the wind'but i appreciate it much higher. I rate it 10.

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.

There's something about Russian films made around this time which are simply brilliant. 6 hours pass very quickly. Pure Genius