Anna Karenina...
I had a mother-daughter evening out with my mother last night - dinner and a trip to the cinema to see Anna Karenina. And I still can't make up my mind whether I enjoyed it or not. The movie, that is, not the evening out with my mother!
It's a very beautiful film, visually it's stunning, and I loved the cinematography and the costumes. It's a delight for the eyes. And I loved the way all the action is staged within a theatre; the way the curtains come up, the backdrops rise and fall when characters move rooms or scenes, the way they range around the gods and the backstage areas. It's a very interesting conceit. And it fits the novel perfectly.
But it felt like watching a dance or a very beautiful shadow play. It never felt real. Which I know is an odd thing to say about a film, since obviously films aren't real to begin with, but I think the concept of the theatre and the very obvious staging made it even less real. It was very beautiful to look at, but it was all surface. There didn't feel like there was any depth to what I was watching; I never cared for the characters, I never understood what motivated any of them, I wasn't moved by their fates.
But then part of that is the source material. Anna Karenina was written very much as a morality tale: Anna isn't a heroine, we're not meant to care for her or approve of her actions. And her world is meant to feel lacking in depth, it's meant to be all gloss and surface and theatricality, because that's what Tolstoy was trying to say about the bourgeoisie Russian aristocratic society.
That's why Kitty and Levin's subplot is there, even though it feels somewhat out of place in this film. In the book Kitty and Levin very much represent the ideal relationship, that perfect pairing of reason and passion, whereas Anna's relationships are all one or the other - Vronsky is all passion and Karenin is all reason, and that's why neither work, why she can never be happy with either of them. Kitty and Levin represent the reality of rural life in contrast to the way Anna's urban society world is pure theatre, literally in this film.
As an adaptation of the book it captures those themes perfectly. In that sense it's a perfect adaptation. But as a film I think you need to care about the characters at some level, otherwise there's no involvement. Otherwise you're just watching pretty pictures for two hours.
It's a very beautiful film, visually it's stunning, and I loved the cinematography and the costumes. It's a delight for the eyes. And I loved the way all the action is staged within a theatre; the way the curtains come up, the backdrops rise and fall when characters move rooms or scenes, the way they range around the gods and the backstage areas. It's a very interesting conceit. And it fits the novel perfectly.
But it felt like watching a dance or a very beautiful shadow play. It never felt real. Which I know is an odd thing to say about a film, since obviously films aren't real to begin with, but I think the concept of the theatre and the very obvious staging made it even less real. It was very beautiful to look at, but it was all surface. There didn't feel like there was any depth to what I was watching; I never cared for the characters, I never understood what motivated any of them, I wasn't moved by their fates.
But then part of that is the source material. Anna Karenina was written very much as a morality tale: Anna isn't a heroine, we're not meant to care for her or approve of her actions. And her world is meant to feel lacking in depth, it's meant to be all gloss and surface and theatricality, because that's what Tolstoy was trying to say about the bourgeoisie Russian aristocratic society.
That's why Kitty and Levin's subplot is there, even though it feels somewhat out of place in this film. In the book Kitty and Levin very much represent the ideal relationship, that perfect pairing of reason and passion, whereas Anna's relationships are all one or the other - Vronsky is all passion and Karenin is all reason, and that's why neither work, why she can never be happy with either of them. Kitty and Levin represent the reality of rural life in contrast to the way Anna's urban society world is pure theatre, literally in this film.
As an adaptation of the book it captures those themes perfectly. In that sense it's a perfect adaptation. But as a film I think you need to care about the characters at some level, otherwise there's no involvement. Otherwise you're just watching pretty pictures for two hours.