Doctor Zhivago - Takes us to Russia with love.

In 1965, three years after “Lawrence of Arabia” director David Lean and actor Omar Sharif were reunited in another delightful epic film. I get the feeling that after managing the visual effects of endless seas of sand in “Lawrence of Arabia,” David Lean wanted to try his hand at endless vistas of snow. The result is another stunning achievement aided by the consummate talent of cinematographer Freddie Young and another Academy Award Winning Musical Score by Maurice Jarre.

It would be too simple to say that Doctor Zhivago is a love story, although it is perhaps one of the greatest of all movie love stories. But it is also a movie about fate. How small choices we make in life take us in the most unexpected directions. Also how outside influences beyond the control of individuals can have an enormous effect on a person's own plans for him or herself.

At the beginning of this movie, which takes place just prior to and through the Bolshevik Revolution, the central characters Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara (Julie Christie) are full of youthful optimism. We see images of upper class excess juxtaposed against abject poverty and civil unrest. It is in this highly charged socioeconomic environment that the lives of the two central characters collide at the very same moment that their two distinctly different but parallel life experiences also collide. There is political and social turmoil. Dr. Yuri Zhivago is married to Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin), a beautiful middle class woman. He is a young physician and part of the privileged “bourgeois” class. Lara, a shop keeper’s assistant is among the struggling disadvantaged and married to an up and coming radical proletariat leader. In the course of life events and chance encounters that throw Zhivago and Lara together, they fall in love. I might add, in spite of their early efforts to deny the fact.

Cinematically this is a beautiful movie with several striking outdoor scenes. Weather is very important in this movie particularly cold weather. Much of the movie takes place in the winter and the cold -- both indoors and outdoors – which seems to add to the tensions of the primary characters. One of my favorite scenes is at a point when Zhivago is trying to make his way home after leaving the army. The landscape is endless snow in all directions punctuated by a long line of refugees in drab winter clothing staggering in single file toward an unknown destination. This scene seems to illustrate the harshness of life and the capability of individuals to endure the most extreme hardships as long as they can stay focused on the dream destination. Other memorable and picturesque scenes include several shots in the idyllic ice encrusted country house where for a brief time the two lovers are able to seclude themselves from the reality of life. In this case the harshness of their surroundings are transformed from freezing ice into a magical crystal palace and we focus more on their personal warmth than the winter cold. During this segment we are reminded of the times in life when we are able to overcome, if only for a short time, the powerful external forces.

Over the course of several years, they both try to continue their separate lives but fate conspires against them, always bringing them back together. In the end they are indeed separated but their love continues. The end suggests the ultimate irony.

Some might say that this movie is too sentimental or basically an elaborate soap opera. But that is too simplistic, as this movie is too artfully created to dismiss so easily. Lean knows how to use cinema to tell a multidimensional story. His close ups are intimate and bring us at times uncomfortably close to the emotions of his characters, while his wide shots never let us forget how enormous the outside world is and how insignificant individuals can be.

Based on a popular novel by Boris Pasternak this movie is constructed on the foundation of a solid well conceived story. It is a saga and as such covers a considerable period of time with characters that weave in and out of the central theme. This is both tricky to write and to direct. Luckily the challenge was skillfully managed by Robert Bolt who for his effort won an Academy Award for a Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Additionally there are solid performances by Sir Alec Guinness as General Yevgraf Zhivago and Sir Ralph Richardson as Yuri’s father-in-law. But Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night) is indeed memorable as the devious deviant Komarovski who is Lara’s other love interest.

This is a good date movie that relies heavily on great cinematography to tell an interesting story. For those interested in history I think it is a good foundation from which to understand some of the basic themes of the Russian Revolution from the perspective of people on the street who really just want to get on with their lives. It can also be said that it is a story about how repression of freedom and repression of personal expression will still somehow manage to find a voice.

This movie can be enjoyed on several levels and deserves to be seen. I give it four eyeballs on my four eyeball scale because it is too good to miss.