Customer Reviews

Tsar [Ivan The Terrible]/Car [Ivan Groznui] [Director: Pavel Lungin] [Cast: Petr Mamonov, Oleg Yankovsky] [DVD NTSC] [Language: Russian] [Subtitles: English] [Run Time: 118 Min.]

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This is a dark and anxious movie, hard to watch--but its depiction of Ivan IV is original and convincing. In contrast to Eisenstein's Ivan IV, Lungin's Ivan has no superhuman majesty-- he's a raving, self-pitying prematurely aged alcoholic easily manipulated by advisors like Adashev and Skuratov. That's probably closer to historical truth. Lungin's treatment is probably also spot-on in emphasizing how much the Oprichnina terror was driven by the tsar's conviction that Apocalypse and Last Judgment were at hand.

I highly recommend the movie to viewers interested in and having some knowledge of 16th-century Russian history. It's not likely to hold much appeal for a larger audience, however.