Guerre et paix

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.

Excellent all-around--the superb acting is the high point--Alexander Beyer and Hannelore Elsner particularly good, and of course Malcolm McDowell is good. The cinematography and production design are gorgeous, and the historical realism is dense and exciting (best Napoleon you'll ever see). Costumes are excellent and rich, and the direction is skillful (wonderful close-ups of the actors, the directors really gave them a chance to shine). Music is beautiful. A really outstanding, well-made piece, a great tale with a wonderful cast of villains and delightfully honorable, upstanding characters, with many exciting contests and backstabbing among them. Though admittedly the narrative has to move along at a brisk pace, and much is left out of the story, this is true of any long tale like this one brought to the screen. Much fun to watch over a few nights.

I really liked this mini series and was never bored with it.

Considering how long it was that was some feat. I see many on here have criticised the casting of certain characters and I can agree with much of what has been said, however for me it didn't detract from the over all enjoyment.

It contained all the right emotions and I thought(casting aside) most of the acting was of a very high standard. The mix of European stars some more stars than others lifted the acting standard and it all worked really well. The scenery and sets were also truly breathtaking.

So over all a good series that reflected the spirit of the book.

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.

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.