Pure poetry

Rating: 10/10 (26 April 2009)

This movie changed the way I looked at tearjerkers for ever. I honestly think that if this movie had never been made we would have never gotten other great tragedy/romance flicks like The English Patient, Titanic or Atonement.
Again David Lean is wonderful as he tells the story of two star crossed lovers caught in the middle of the Bolshevik revolution. The film has great acting by Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin and Alec Guinness, just to name a few. But the best performance is given by Omar Sharif who plays the title character. His performance as Zhivago is amazing. The emotions his character is going through play clearly in his eyes, there are not many actors who can do so much with so little. Originally Lean wanted Peter O'Toole to play Zhivago, but he declined because he was exhausted after doing Lawrence of Arabia. This caused a rift between Lean and O'Toole, but frankly I'm glad Peter declined because I just can't see anyone else, but Omar Sharif in that iconic role. This was David Lean's most commercially successful film, and a lot of that is owed to the raw chemistry that Sharif and Julie Christie share on screen. This movie is like poetry been captured in film. The cinematography is beautiful, the editing is great, and the film score works with the atmosphere.
There's few films which leave me breathless after watching it and this is one of them.