Customer Reviews

National Geographic's Russia's Last Tsar [VHS]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"To the victor go the spoils," including the "right" to revise history. I was disheartened when I saw this film because the greater part of it is Bolshevik propaganda from the Revolution. Sure, there are facts, like dates, locations, little things like that. But instead of truly researching the person of Tsar Nicholas II, the Geographic people were content to simply regurgitate what the party-line of the Soviet Union had been in regards to the Tsar. Obviously this information is very biased. Unfortunately, since most information about the Tsar that we have today was written after the Revolution, either by the Soviets or by people who had the Soviets as their sole source of information, one really cannot find a non-biased source. There is, of course, the Russian Orthodox Church, but scholars seem to view them as being an even more biased source than the Soviets were. In any case, take the statements in this film with a BOULDER of salt.

All - Nicholas II, entire family, Rasputin - are depicted in the same inaccurate, flat caricatures as those created by the Revolutionary propagandists. Anna Vyrubova is not discussed at all, nor does she appear in any of the photography. To give the crumb of credit where it is due, this film does contain bout 2 minutes worth of engaging footage of the Romanov children at play. Otherwise, it offers only still photographs most people interested in Russian history have seen before and often.

I give this documentary the following scores, on a 1-5 scale:

Objectivity: 1
Originality: 0

Tells mostly about the Czar and family what led to there exicution