The Duelist (2016)
Returning to Saint Petersburg after a long exile, the dashing Yakovlev, a retired army officer, makes a comfortable living by winning other people's duels. An enigmatic, focused, and extremely skilled professional, he leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him as he swirls through polite society, frequently called upon to wield a pistol as a surrogate in duels at dawn. But when Yakovlev meets the naïve young Prince Tuchov and his beautiful sister, Princess Martha, the normally cold-hearted mercenary is surprised by hitherto undetected emotions. What transpires uncovers a series of revelations about his past and his present self.
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A Brilliant Conflict
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
"The Duelist" turned out unexpectedly engaging to me. Dark, bloody, yet beautiful. The dark side of honor and the dark side of beauty. Not historically accurate, yet very, very immersive. Most technical details are plain false. But that aura of Russian Grand Society feels so much true, so natural!The best definition I could find for this movie is "Noir, transferred into the XIX-th century, Saint-Petersburg, Russia". There's much in common, really. Blood, death, wounds, tortures, nudity... plenty of this. As well as desperation, infamy, cruelty, scheming, femme fatale. Everything you can find in a typical noir. Only the place would be the capital of Russian Empire. Vast palaces, dirty streets, crowded soirees, the shade of the Royal Family, officers, nobles... and the duels!A rare gem of late Russian cinema, really. Truly underrated.
A lush (but visually repetitive), naive, confusing and frequently tiresome, story about the 19th-century Czarist Russian Aristocracy solely from the perspective of violent duels to maintain honor. Peter Fedorov is the Russian Colin Farrell in a stunning similarity. Kept expecting him to speak Russian with an Irish accent. Teensy tiny bit of a love story . . . totally hokey, straight out of 1955. This is barely watchable.
Set in 19th century Imperial Russia, this quite violent Russian film stars Pyotr Fyodorov, who gives a powerful performance as the mysterious Yakovlev. He's only been in the city of St. Petersburg for several months but has already killed 5 men as a duelist (comparable in a way to a Wild West gunslinger). Only slowly do we learn of his motivations, and it's only towards the very end of the movie that all is revealed.To note, I thought some of the plot elements could be rather obtuse and difficult to follow at times. The settings and cinematography are exquisite and I really got the sense that I was right there in 19th century Russia.All in all, if you don't mind the violence or some of the cloudy plot elements, this movie can be a reasonably decent watch, especially if you like dark and intense foreign dramas.
Saw it at TIFF 2016. The sets and costumes are great and the story is engrossing, but be warned that this film is *extremely* violent in places. "Onegin" this is not!Also, when they are speaking German, there is a Soviet-style voice-over instead of subtitles, so you can't actually hear what the actors are saying.Overall, it was a very interesting experience!I recommend seeing it if you are at all interested in Russian culture, but sadly this film is likely to be too lowbrow to meet the approval of the art-house crowd.