Love and Communism

Rating: 8/10 (24 July 2004)

All in all, a superb film even if at moments it seems to lack the necessary dose of reality (however this is a shortcoming only if you are a fan of "naturalistic" films, so often nowadays) and the coherence of the narratorial perspective could have been a little adjusted (but then, shame on me!, I didn't have the occasion to read Pasternak's novel). In Romania, one of accusations in one of the most famous trials of the Communist era (the "Noica-Pillat" trial) was that of having read the book by Pasternak. The love story depicted in "Doctor Zhivago" is extremely sensitive (and Julie Christie is absolutely GORGEOUS) and emphasizes once again the contrast between ideology and real life. The background of the Russian revolution is most inadequate for real feelings, however love springs out no matter what the circumstances. The condition of the artist under the Communist rule is a side theme, nonetheless very well suggested. Today's radical leftists, Marxists, Che Guevara fans, Communist nostalgics should watch such movies from time to time, in order to see that real life has nothing to do with Utopian ideologies, that Man is such an imperfect human being that he cannot bear the burden of building a Utopian society and that love is always more important, more touching.