Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anna Karenina

This is topic Anna Karenina in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 01-01-2013, 04:20 PM:

At the Cinemart Auditorium #3, Forest Hills, NYC Jan 1; 1:15 PM

I found this lavishly costumed, beautifully photographed production full of fine acting by beautiful women and handsome men, but perplexing at first for me.

I read Tolstoy's classic novel more than 60 years ago, and it took a while before I realised the characters' relationships and could follow the sub-plots; it's "all in the family" complexity, and reveals the elegant life styles of the Russian aristocracy in the 19th Century.

The production follows the dictum "All the world's a stage", in that the filmscript was written by a playwright who uses the basic setting, a theater, as a ballroom, opera house, hippodrome, and train station, among other venues. Fortunately,the camera cuts away to reveal close shots and whole scenes in other mansions and outdoors, so that the film is theatrical in both stage and cinema production techniques.

I put off seeing this film for a while, thinking it might appeal mostly to women, but agreed to escort my wife on the first day of the year. She enjoyed it immensely!
In preparation for our visit, I made blini (Russian miniature buckwheat pancakes), topped by creme fraish, black and red caviar, smoked salmon, chives and Spanish cheese, with a bottle of Champagne the previous midnight. That set the mood for Tolstoy; still I was often confused, but admired the skilled production.

Unfortunately, the film was scratched throughout, with heavy green lines running along the right screen side, about a foot from the edge, in the dark scenes, and multiple black lines there in the light scenes. And on the left an overly bright EXIT sign in red neon proved just as distracting.

[I hope to avoid Auditorium #3 in future; is is a long narrow shoebox, with a level floor and a wall-to-wall screen so high that its bottom edge was way above my head, from every row, causing all patrons to look upward at an image resembling a letter-boxed TV.]

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-08-2013, 11:44 AM:

I thought visually it was great, but on the whole I thought this was utterly boring.