Doctor Zhivago (1965) - film review

After the death of his mother, 8-year-old Yuri Zhivago is adopted by the bourgeois Gromekos and taken to their home in Moscow.  Here, as he grows into a man, Yuri acquires a love of poetry, but is determined to make a career as a doctor.  He falls in love with and marries the Gromekos’ daughter, Tonya.  During WWI, he meets Lara, the wife of a committed revolutionary, Pasha.  On his return to Moscow, Yuri finds that his house has been seized by the Bolsheviks.  He and his family seek sanctuary from the impending civil war by fleeing to the country.  They settle in a village in the Urals and lead a peaceful existence until one day Yuri meets Lara again and realises that he is hopelessly in love with her...

David Lean’s epic saga of romance and revolution in Russia has been vilified as much as it has been praised.  Some consider it a masterpiece, possibly Lean’s best film; others dismiss it as overblown artistic self-indulgence.  Lean’s most expensive film, Doctor Zhivago is a faithful rendering of Boris Pasternak’s sprawling novel and certainly impresses with its wondrous visuals – its stunning snow-filled panoramas of the Russian landscape (filmed in Canada and Finland) and authentic, well-choreographed action sequences.  Maurice Jarre evocative score includes the haunting Lara’s Theme, one of the most famous pieces of music in cinema history.

Yet the film is far from perfect.  It is uncomfortably overlong, the pace painfully uneven and Omar Sharif so obviously miscast in the lead role.  Watching Doctor Zhivago without a comfort break is like subjecting yourself to a long and bumpy journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway – the pictures are pretty, but you can’t help getting slightly bored after the first hour and, boy, is it hard on the posterior.  Broken down into three one hour-long doses (and with a soft cushion), it is much more bearable.

Aesthetically, Doctor Zhivago is a work of immense beauty (veering only occasionally to the unpardonably pretentious), but it fails as a piece of drama.  Despite some creditable performances (Rod Steiger and Tom Courtenay are excellent), it is hard to engage with the characters or their plight.  We are at least spared the sight of Sophia Loren as Lara (that was Carlo Ponti’s first choice for the role), but Julie Christie does little with the part other than make her look pretty and helpless.   Had the writers applied more rigour and the Occam’s razor principle the story might have had more impact and less ennui.  Whilst you may watch the film once and appreciate its cinematographic brilliance, it is unlikely that you will be encouraged to subject yourself to it a second time, unless you are a masochist with a short memory.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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