One of David Leans Best Epic

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2008)

I watched this movie before and rated it 8/10, the reason might have been it was almost 2:00am and I was sleepy and blamed it on the movie. But when I re-watched it again this time in the morning hours I quickly realized my mistake and changed my vote to 10/10 and felt bad for putting a blame on this masterpiece of cinema and David Lean in particular. I earlier watched David Leans other creation Lawrence of Arabia and I must admit I didn't really like it that much as other critics have praised it. The difference in these movies for me is LOA being an epic story of a single man with run time of over 3 hours which at times make you feel bored whereas DZ is an epic story of not just a man (although he is a central figure); it is a depiction of a tumultuous history of Russia in early 20th century while revolving around the life of Dr. Zhivago in it, which makes you excited all the time as you are not following one man but following a country through different times. In a nutshell, the story is that Dr. Zhivago is a poet, an efficient doctor, very respectful among the countrymen, and although happily married is in love with another woman who was once married to another man. Story takes us from the early beginning of Russian revolution to the WW I, to the death of Tsar, and to the rise of Stalin in power. All that period in Russia was one of the most bloody one and extremely troublesome for the people in it. All this is shown in a flashback as Zhivago's brother (an army officer) tells all this to one woman who he thinks is a lost daughter of his brother with the woman he was in love with and wrote poetry about, Lara. Coming to acting Omar Sharif as Dr. Zhivago is very well cast, he does good justice to his role, Julie Christie as Lara is wonderful, and she looked amazingly beautiful throughout the movie and now I know why Al Pacino called her as the 'most poetic of all actresses'. Other actors too are well cast and do full justices to their parts. Direction, needless to say is brilliant by the Legend Lean. Cinematography is beautiful depicting a good visualization of Russian landscape and few scenes especially the train one when Zhivago and his family are going to Ural, and the place they stay in there after are all beautifully captured. Music too blends well with the story. Everything else related are all very good. Watch the movie irrespective of the length of it; you will be surprised by the beauty of it. Other recommendations from me if you liked this movie and which also deals with some characters in the movie but takes us through certain period of time of that country, and they are 1. Siberiade and 2. Andrei Rublyov.