Review: Anna Karenina
made by angel_of_wings
Review: Anna Karenina
Author: wincestuouslove
Summary: To spotlight the gayness :D
I just watched Anna Karenina (2012), an adaption of Leo Tolstoy's fiction, directed by Joe Wright and casted his muse Keira Knightley as the title charcter who has an extra-marital affair with the aduterer Count Alexei Vronsky played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. The poor husband Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin is played by a disguised Jude Law
.
Generally speaking, I like the arts and the glamously costumes. I especically appreciate how the entire movie is displayed marvelously in a threater stage setting to present the phrase "All the world's a stage" from Shakespeare.
However, I would never trust Jude Law on participating in any epic hetero love story based on whatever monumental literary works ever again, 'cos he keeps charging everything gay!
Spoiler Alert!
First of all, the love of this hetero couple is not so "epic" IMO. Maybe it's because the chemistry between the actors is not so phenomonal. Their sex scene is the most turn off one I have ever seen. I don't see the actual "click" in the first sight happening, and their dancing, which is full of weird hand gestures that like Kung Fu more than Waltz, is not as sexually tensed as the one in Sherlock Holmes: The Game of Shadow.
This is Anna and Vronsky practising Tai Chi.
Click to viewThis is how a couple should dance.
Secondly, I have never read the original work so I don't know if the character Anna is supposed to be hateful.
The Anna in this movie is restless, carpricious, ungrateful and took everyone for granted. She neglectes warnings or advices and humiliated her husband and herself over and over, then she has the heart to blame someone for that.
In the end she becomes even more oversensitive and so neurotic that make me distressed to watch. Sorry but I give no sympathy to her.
On the other hand, Jude's Karenin is so gentle and beautiful (even though he is uglyfied to play bald, he still charms), and very unlike to how the book describes him as a cold and heartless, homely man. And most important of all is that he is not remote or unconcerned to his wife.
In fact, he is loyal. He cares and respects Anna better than any other men to their wives in that century.
He easily gains the pitiness from the audience and makes Anna more than a douchebag.
And then, there are some amusing observastions to the characters:
Karenin's acceptance to the adultery
When Karenin suspected that Anna was having an affair with Vronsky, he was quite accepting. Not miserable, not angry, not envy. All he worried about was if his social state would be affected by the scandal so he repeatedly hinted her to keep it low-keyed. That means, if Anna was able to keep the affair under the public radar, Karenin would have approve the threesome relationship.
Karenin: I have to warn you about something.
Anna: Warn me? It’s really rather late...
Karenin: I wish to warn you that you may inadvertently, by indiscretion and carelessness, give the world occasion to talk about you.
Anna: I am not a committee. Please say what you want to tell me.
Karenin: You and Count Vronsky attracted attention tonight.
Anna: You don’t like it when I don’t talk to people, and you don’t like it when I do.
Karenin: I didn’t notice anything, myself. But I saw that everyone else noticed. I consider jealousy to be insulting to you and degrading to me...
Anna's unexpected intention to her men
As Anna confessed her adultery with Vronsky to Karenin, she may also deliberately made the men meet. God knows if she procrastinated her husband to create such an awkward encounter in the entrance of her house. Was she expecting something would spark between their glances?
Vronsky: Your note said your husband would be out.
Anna: He was late. Serves him right. And you. Why do you call him my husband? He isn’t my husband- he’s a clock, a wooden doll-
Vronsky: But it was awkward... a matter of your honour. You made an agreement.
In the scene which Anna was lying on bed, believing she's about to die, she summoned her husband and her adulterer, both were called Alexei, to come over to her. She then introduced Vronsky to Karenin, praised him as kind as a saint, and instructed the two men to hold hands. Then she was so satisfied and relieved that she prayed and thanked God.
Anna: Oh, my dear. Don’t look at me like that. I am not the one you think. I’m afraid of her. She fell in love with another man. I’m the real one. But I’m dying now, then she’ll be dead, too. Poor man! Let him come in. Alexei! Alexei!
[Vronsky hears her calling. He comes into the bedroom, covering his face, unmanned.]
Anna: Take your hands away from your face. Look at my husband. He’s a saint! Take his hand. Alexei- take his hands away.
[Karenin pulls Vronsky’s fingers, and holds on to Vronsky’s hand.]
Anna: Forgive him, too. Thank God, thank God...
[Later]
Vronsky: Whatever you think of me, please believe me, I love her. I could not have done otherwise than what I... what I did.
Karenin: [nods and sits next to him] But you must leave now. I promise to send for you if she asks for you. I don’t know what happened. I forgive you. I forgive Anna. My soul is filled with joy. I will remain with her and look after her for ever.
[Karenin stands up and offers his hand. Vronsky grasps it and lays his head on Karenin's chest, crying. Karenin embraces and comfort him]
Karenin: Come now, come now...
Do I misunderstand something or is the "real" Anna the biggest shipper of the two Alexei?
Karenin's love to Vronsky's offspring
It's interesting that the daughter of Anna and Vronsky did not upset Karenin at all. Actually, Karenin apparently wanted Vronsky's flesh and blood. To make the girl his own, he refused divorcing Anna, so the daughter would be legally Karenin's.
Karenin: But then- what? What? What do you want? Do you know what you want? Do you want to see Count Vronsky?
Anna: Not to say goodbye.
Karenin: I can’t hear.
Anna: Not to say goodbye.
Karenin: You would be lost. Irretrievably lost. You would have no position. And worse if we divorce. You would be the guilty party. That means you cannot legally remarry. Your union with Count Vronsky would be illegitimate, and so would your daughter who now has the protection of my name. And that is what you want! It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.
Vronsky: Well . . . Alexander agreed to everything. Mother’s house in Moscow will go to him, and the country estate will be our new home . . . as soon as the divorce . . . Karenin hasn’t answered your letter yet?
Vronsky: I didn’t show it to you, because Stiva keeps telegraphing what we already know. Karenin promises nothing, but will consider.
Anna Why do you care about the divorce? What has it got to do with us loving each other?
Vronsky Until we’re married, our daughter is legally Karenin’s. I care about it because we need to be free to marry.
What we see in the end scene is that Karenin was sitting on an armchair, gratified by watching his own son and the half-daughter playing in the field. So Karenin must have adopted Vronsky's daughter. The scene reminds me of a wife knitting peacefully on an armchair in the garden while waiting for her husband home.
In the screenplay, there is a scene following this which Vronsky fights in the war. However, it is deleted in the final version of the movie.
And unlike the orinigal fiction, Vronsky in this movie showed no suffering on the loss of Anna.
Does Wright implying that Karenin and Vronsky were happily raising the sibings together after Anna's death?
P.S. I really got a cheap laugh in the theater when Vronsky shot his horse in grief and said "Her back's broken!" ...
Credit
[1] screenplayexplorer for transcription
[2] sns_red_curtainfor screencaps