Customer Reviews

Onegin [VHS]

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a truly wonderful film. It is an adaptation of the 19th century romantic poem by Alexander Pushkin about the tragic love affair between Evgeny Onegin (Ralph Fiennes) and Tatyana Larina (Liv Tyler). Evgeny has inherited his uncle's provincial estate and goes to the country to put his affairs in order. While there, he befriends Vladimir (Toby Stevens) who introduces him to Tatyana, the sister of his fiancé. Tatyana falls madly in love with Evgeny, but he brutally rejects her and leaves to return to St. Petersburg. Upon returning years later to find her married, his regrets ignite into a passionate and obsessive love for her.

There has been some criticism of the fact that this film was produced by Ralph Fiennes to give a project to his sister Martha (director) and brother Magnus (original music). Well, if this is the high quality wrought from Fiennes nepotism, we need more such collaborations.

In her feature film directorial debut, Martha Fiennes gives us outstanding imagery, precise period renderings, innovative camera work, and dramatic lighting. The sets, locations, costumes and props were fabulous. I especially loved the furniture. The scenes on the dock by the mill in the fog were eerie and chilling. One shot of Liv Tyler in a rowboat, shot through out-of-focus reeds in the foreground, was pure art. The extreme close-up of the inking of the love letter added to the power of the emotions being written. Remi Adefarasin (`Elizabeth') added wondrous cinematography to the list of filmmaking kudos.

Ralph Fiennes delivers another superb performance as Evgeny. In the early scenes, he is cavalier, self absorbed, and arrogant to the point of being despicable. His stoical dismissal of Tatyana was ice cold. In the later scenes, he delivers a character so pathetically tormented by love that he wins back our sympathies.

This is by far the best performance I have seen by Liv Tyler. She was poised, graceful and lovely, and gave an extremely dignified performance. With this role, she has proven that she can move beyond the troubled teen type and play a character with substance.

This is intelligent and inspired filmmaking. I rated it a 9/10. The pacing is deliberate, so action junkies will want to pass on this film. However, for those who can savor a compelling love story with splendid imagery, this film should not be missed.

Somebody needs to give Ralph Fiennes' sister more projects, if they turn out like this one. An adaptation of Pushkin's romantic poem, this is a romance with feeling and a fantastic costume drama to boot. "Onegin" is a truly beautiful movie with excellent direction, and great performances by Fiennes and Liv Tyler.

Dissipated playboy Evgeny Onegin (Ralph Fiennes) inherits the country estate of his late uncle and travels there to decide what to do with it. There he befriends a rather excitable young man, Vladimir Lensky (Toby Stephens), who introduces him to the family of his fiancee. The fiancee's sister, the beautiful Tatyana Larina (Liv Tyler), catches Onegin's eye and his fancy. She falls in love with him, but he kindly rejects her.

A crisis separates Onegin from the Larina family, when Vladimir takes a warning the wrong way, challenges Onegin to a duel, and is killed. He leaves on travels, and a cousin tries to marry Tatyana off, even though she doesn't want to marry without love. Six years later, he returns to St. Petersburg and finds Tatyana is living there -- but is married to another man.

It's a simple plot, and definitely one where you wonder what will happen in the end. You wonder if Tatyana and Onegin will be together, you wonder if the end will be happy or sad, and you even wonder if both of them will live to the end. With a minimum of effort, Martha Fiennes makes us care deeply about Tatyana (a sympathetic character) and Onegin (a not-so-sympathetic character). The surroundings reflect what is going on -- the windy cold of St. Petersburg, the murky gray morning of the duel, and the sunny afternoon where Tatyana watches Onegin from her hidden boat. Another good effect that Fiennes uses is sound, especially after Vladimir is killed: Tatyana rushes into her house, crying and telling her mother and sister what happened. There is no sound, no music. All we see are the family's anguished faces, and it is all the more effective that way. The sweeping sets and costumes are outstandingly lush and beautiful.

Liv Tyler does an excellent job as Tatyana (my only quibble is that the hairstyles and clothes are definitely not what she should wear). She embodies the right combination of passion and quiet, like a statue that stays cool, distant and untouchable, until the statue cracks and all her emotions spill out. We gradually see that for all Tatyana's dreaminess and seeming spaciness, she's as solid and upright as a pillar. Ralph Fiennes is equally good at making us like Onegin, an idle playboy with a dislike of responsibility, who starts the movie daydreaming about a courtesan. And even though it was his own fault that he missed happiness with Tatyana, we feel sorry for him and wish that somehow their problems could be ironed out. His gradual awakening to real human feeling at Vladimir's death is one of the most powerful moments in the entire movie. There are also good supporting performances from Harriet Walter and Lena Headey as Tatyana's distant mother and flighty sister.

The romantics among you will love "Onegin," and probably will be shedding tears at the finale. Amazing actors and direction that will knock your socks off, and one you should definitely see.

I would like to provide an additional perspective from someone who knows Russian and read Pushkin's novel several times in the original language. I believe if one is to enjoy this novel in English, prose is the only way to achieve it, and this movie certainly does the job. It's not the most faithful adaption, nor could it possibly be. The original is timeless and beautiful... and let's keep it on its pedestal. The movie, however, is something completely different - and it's all the better for it.

This is a wildly romantic fable about disillusionment, cynicism, and their clash with moral strength and commitment. The title character is so sated with life and its excesses that he looks and wants for nothing anymore, believing all that this world can offer him is meaningless. To his great misfortune (or is it fortune?), he is proven wrong.

There are several things that Martha Fiennes, director, does right here: she extracts every ounce of talent from Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler (her best work to date - she needs more of such roles), she creates an atmosphere of longing that doesn't release the viewer until the credits roll on the screen, and she sticks true to the characters' dimensions. The movie is never boring or slow. Music is so well matched to action that one marvels at it - Tchaikovsky's opera has a contender in Onegin's score.

Also, the DVD itself is very well-made - quality is excellent, there are plenty of extra features, the interviews with the cast are especially insightful, and the director's commentary is like icing on the cake.

From someone very skeptical about "period pieces" and any adaptations of Russian literature by English directors, I must say... we need more of such movies. I will be the first in line for the next work from Martha, whatever it may be about.

There are two theories of translation -- one that you should stick as literally to the original as possible, the other that you should take certain liberties to get a good end result. I adhere to the views of the latter school.

Pushkin has managed to move one of the greatest nations on the earth to the core, to unify them for 200 years. Many Russians would say Evgenii Onegin is Russia's greatest literary work. But the original is in rhyme, a rhyme that feels sort of baroque and fairy-tale-ish to me, and that part of it doesn't translate well to the modern English-speaking range of sentiment.

A Russian sculptor friend of mine once asked me what the difference was between art and decoration, and when I had no answer, he said, "Decoration is about many things. Art is about one Thing."

Onegin is about one thing, and that one thing is faithfully preserved in this film. The film leaves out lots of lesser things, which point to this one thing, but you have to make choices to fit the world into two hours. That one thing is heart and mind of Evgenii -- what makes a man say no to that which he loves and wants above everything else? What makes a man deceive himself into believing he (and even she) don't want it? What becomes of such a man?

God is great.

Tatyana sees right through him even in her moment of greatest agony and she never wavers. It makes me dizzy to think how much pain I might have been spared had I had such insight at 17. And that aspect of Pushkin's story strikes me as beautifully unrealistic. As Pushkin said, "A great story must be a little... hmmm... 'glupovat'..." Perhaps 'dorky' would serve as a translation?

Ralph and Liv act beautifully. (I hadn't given Liv Tyler sufficient benefit of the doubt -- she understands her role and conveys such depth to it.) But I think first prize must go to the director for seeing this one clearly.

I've heard somewhere that Ralph Fiennes conceived this film solely to give his sister a project to direct and his brother a film to score. If so, then please by all means, do it again, Ralph! Onegin does not fail to stay true to the text, Eugene Onegin, it's based on, and evokes the melancholy splendor and chilling depth of Russian literature.

This has to be Liv Tyler's finest performance, hands down. She carries herself with the elegance, passion, romance, naivte and heartbreak that Tatanya possesses on the page. Ralph Fiennes does indeed do a fine job of Eugene Onegin, presenting a phenomenal turn from telling Tatyana to forget him to being consumed by passion for her.

In the many silent periods of the film there is such an intensity far greater than any action film, and the dialogue cuts you like a cold Russian winter breeze. This is one of those now-rare films where the true emphasis is on the story.

Magnus Fiennes' score fits the film perfectly, drawing on Russian themes as well as classical music for inspiration, and Martha Fiennes could not have been a more perfect director.
It has my highest recommendation I can give to a film, and should not be missed.

Jaded playboy meets country beauty and doesn't know how to appreciate her. She declares her love for him, and he rejects her. However years later after he has gone through several crises he comes to realize she is the love of his life. It's too late by then. She is the wife of another. And steadfast heroine that she is, she will not break her marriage vows.

Ah, the sweet torture. The close-ups of Ralph Fiennes's ever expressive eyes. It was a love junkie's smorgasbord.

What do I know about cinematography? The film's a feast for the eyes. That's good enough for me. Direction? Martha Fiennes did a fine job in my humble opinion. And the score was hauntingly lovely.

The previous reviews have been technical enough. I'm a writer. From a writer's point of view, this was excellent storytelling.

This film is based on the poem "Evgeni Onegin" by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799 - 1836), that was also adapted into an opera by Tchaikovsky. My wife, who is from Ukraine and grew up reading Pushkin, absolutely loved the movie and felt it authentically captured, as she told me, "the Russian soul."

Pushkin's poem contains a premonition of his own death, since it depicts a man's death in a pistol duel over the honor of a woman. The challenger, seeking to avenge the honor of a woman he loves, and who he imagines to have received advances from another man, challenges him to a duel and is killed. Ten years after composing the poem, Pushkin died at the age of 37 in a pistol duel with a French army officer who he challenged to a duel after accusing him of making advances on his wife.

This is a well-made romantic movie, with dancing between elegantly dressed men and women in large mansions with beautifully furnished rooms. "Onegin" was filmed on location in St. Petersburg, Russia and directed by Ralph Fiennes' sister, Martha Fiennes. It has excellent dialogue, first-rate acting, and beautiful cinematography, half in the city of St. Petersburg and half in the countryside, with gorgeous green forests.

The movie is filled with tragic irony and sad contradictions. Onegin, played by Ralph Fiennes, is jaded and cynical. Yet, he has become so wise in the ways of the world that his jaded cynicism has become, itself, a form of naivete. He refuses to recognize that real friendship and true love can actually exist, even as he senses it developing within himself, first in his friendship with a young man from a neighboring estate who is as idealistic and enthusiastic about life as Onegin is nihilistic and world-weary, and then in his romantic interest in the beautiful and intelligent young woman, Tatiana. This movie has real substance, beauty, and depth. The extra features on the DVD are also excellent; the interviews with the actors, especially Ralph Fiennes, are very interesting. This is a wonderful movie to watch in the evening with someone you love. Very highly recommended.

Onegin is a timeless tale that is celebrated worldwide. It "hails" a young philander, blinded by the disillution of Petersburg, Onegin, who inherits his deceased uncle's provincial estate. The opulence of the captial has crippled his morality and he finds himself a drifter in the contagious insular warmth; a courageous, free-thinking, idealistic young girl catches his eyes. Onegin mercilessly rejects the girl (Liv Tyler"'s bold declaration only to save himself the trouble of actually falling in love; instead, he flirts with the girl's engaged sister. He sees the gleaming spark of love, but the hard shell that has protected him from humaness leads to the tragic route he eventually takes--even years after he departs from the shattered frame he leaves behind. And when Onegin does see Tantyana (Liv Tyler's character) again, in the same opulence he fled from, he is torn by the compunction of an undisplined heart.

Debuting diretor Martha Fiennes does a fabulous job in staying true to Pushkin's sweeping tone. The camera work also gives it a look of grandeur. But what really made this an unforgetable piece of art is its subtle treatment of relationships and of passions. Pushkin is the Byron of the Russian language, and of course Onegin is Don Juan's assumed counterpart; but verses contain much and retain much, keen eyes need to dig into the lines to find the hard wisdom lurking behind Pushkin's melliflorous lyrics. This is where Martha Fiennes excelled; she has a great eye for hidden truth, and with the surperb casting of Liv Tyler, the helpless yearning is carefully shrouded within innocence. As a huge Russian literature fan, I was slightly offended by the use of British accent in this film; but truly, I don't see another actor more suitable than Ralph Fiennes to creep under the flamboyant skin of the title character. His icy eyes make him a perfect heartless man, and Tyler's drooping warmth makes her a perfect temptation and hindrance to the philander who is daunted by the prospect of true love. The scenes shot in St. Petersburg are just breataking; the wintry ambiance makes everything in Pushkin's timeless tale come alive. It gave my imagination an outlet, and the costume job almost led me to overlook the British actors. True, this is a film of little action, but the one sequence of duel between Onegin and his best friend, is beautifully filmed and the bullet grazes more than skin--it grazes Onegin's superficiality. The pace is slow at times, but over all, the tale is in one motion, galloping like a troika across the virgin lands towards the deepest realization of the soul.

Fine performances highlight `Onegin,' a generally interesting version of Pushkin's complex love story whose contemporary significance shines through the tortured souls of its two main characters. Ralph Fiennes stars in the title role as a 19th Century Russian aristocrat who, like many similar figures in Russian literature of that time, suffers from the attenuating effects of enervation and ennui. Though the recipient of vast sums of wealth and property at the death of his uncle, Onegin finds no meaning or solace in life as he lives it. He is as bored by the stifling superficiality of the privileged elite languishing in splendor in the fancy halls and glittering ballrooms of cosmopolitan St. Petersburg as he is by the domestic dreariness of the provincials residing in the bucolic countryside where one of his uncle's vast estates is located. In the latter setting, while visiting Vladimir - a poet he has recently befriended - Onegin becomes drawn to Tatyana the beautiful younger sister of the man's fiancé. Both Onegin and Tatyana reflect a remarkably modern sensibility in their temperaments. For instance, though the attraction between the two is a mutual one, it is Tatyana who makes the first move, pouring out her unbridled love for this newcomer in a letter which Onegin politely rejects because he fears the deadening of the soul that he believes will inevitably accompany marriage and fidelity. One can't get much more contemporary in tone than these two characters, one stepping well out of the accustomed bounds accorded her sex in affairs of romance and the other reflecting the fear of commitment that is such a staple of modern times. Yet, fate plays its cruelest hand at the end, as Onegin finds himself, years later, trapped in an ironic role reversal as the now-married Tatyana is forced to rebuff the advances of the obsessed, lovelorn man whom she still admits to loving. As in many bleak works of Russian literature, the character is forced to live out his existence in a hell of his own making, suffering the torment of regret without end.

The personal drama unfolds against the fascinating backdrop of the subtly changing society of 19th Century Russia, a country that, then and now, has seemed to be always several centuries behind its European neighbors in its moves towards liberalization in the areas of basic human and civil rights. We see clearly the struggle between the empty ritualism and entrenched barbarism of the past, as reflected in the continuing institution of serfdom and in gun duels fought over affairs of honor, and the enlightened philosophy of the coming world, as many young aristocrats begin to champion both the abolition of serfdom and the growing acceptance of love as the foundation of marriage. Indeed, the two young lovers cannot extricate themselves from the entanglements that often accompany a time unsure of its traditions. Onegin, for all his talk about freeing his serfs, is himself forced to participate in a duel that both horrifies and disgusts him. And Tatyana, for all her comments about only marrying a man she loves, succumbs to the pressure of tradition, ultimately agreeing to a marriage based on class, money and position. Here are two people caught in a world not yet ready for them, who are forced to settle for the compromises their society has deemed fit and proper.

This well-acted, well-written and well-directed film may seem a bit slow at times, but the intelligence of the dialogue, the subtle underplaying of the cast and the quiet beauty of much of the direction lead us into a strange world of the past that still has resonance and relevance for the world of today.

This film of Pushkin's famous tragedy is the lasting memorial to the Pushkin Bicentennial celebrations of the last year.

The film left me emotionally crushed. My (Russian) wife could hardly speak afterwards. The audience were in tears throughout the film. Though, neither through 'syrupy' nor cynical plot twists, but through the freshness of the acting and the awful tragedy of Onegin's life.

Onegin initially appears as a wealthy sybarite dandy in Petersburg's 'belle societie'. His morals and emotions have declined to a point where his life has neither meaning nor direction. Living , for him, becomes nauseatingly predictable and painful. Startled by the innocence of a young and intelligent provincial lady (Tatjana) that he meets on his (rarely-visited) country estate, he experiences a profound change in his attitude towards his life. Tatjana distantly views Onegin as a graceful man-of-letters who could lead her into a new glittering life away from the provinces. Now, enter Tatjana's local admirer, a jealous and compulsive man, and a breathtakingly beautiful flirty young woman who also wishes to escape the provinces. Tragedy ensues, spread over time and distance. Now watch the film..

Ralph Fiennes' style of acting puts me in mind of Anthony Hopkins' Shadowlands: that is, expressing withheld emotions through his eyes. Liv Tyler shouldn't be maligned, she is a fine Tatjana and handles the role well. It's true that some of the props and scenes are not representative of Pushkin's time. But they in no way distract from the film.

My Russian collegues loved the film especially Ralph Fiennes who has become quite the celebrity in Russia through the film. Though he is also known for his Almeida Chekhov interpretations. My thanks to the crew and actors for this wonderful film.