Tsar (2009)

That was an excellent one.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

And this is a serious film? A history lesson? A true depiction of real events? I am sorry, but some on, this is a real mess. It is so awful, so in-cohesive, so terribly poor that I was laughing. Well, everything is painfully wrong here - choice of Pyotr Mamonov as a Tsar Ivan The Terrible is the first and worst error - he just is a mere buffoon and horrid performer, overplaying almost every aspect, and instead of a paranoid tyrant we see a psychotic idiot with whimsical ticks. The great late Oleg Yankovski as Fillip is pale and bland, while Ivan Okhlobystin as a Tsar's jester is a simple clown with no merit. And the list goes on - the film is excruciatingly slow, painfully boring, stale and languid. Even the battle scenes and execution scenes are just a twitching mess and a true throwaway. What happened? Poor casting, poor script, poor pacing, poor camera work and very vapid message. No message. What we got was a tepid fetid livid stale pale brew. Awful and weak

I agree completely with the author of "Sergei Eisenstein honored" in calling this film the third part of Eisenstein's intended trílogy of the most debatable of all Russian tzars. Eisenstein had planned a third film to his great "Ivan the Terrible" project but never came to fulfill it since already the second part was forbidden by Stalin, and Eisenstein died before Stalin. However, this film would have satisfied Eisenstein completely as a fulfillment of his last cinematic dreams.Of course, it has flaws. Pyotr Mamonov is not quite convincing as the tzar and does not stand up to a comparison with the incomparable Nikolai Cherkasov as the leading actor in Eisenstein's masterpieces. While Eisenstein's films are monumentally theatrical with every scene a masterpiece of composition and every face unforgettably impressive in pictorial portraiture, Mamonov as the tzar is too much of a caricature and is overdoing it in a grotesque way that falls out of the personage that the tzar really was. This twisted interpretation of the life on the throne is worsened by the revolting presence of the fool, who pushes the exaggerations far over the top of any credibility.All this grotesqueness, which really was part of Ivan's reign but only one side of it, is wonderfully balanced by Oleg Yankovsky as the metropolitan and childhood friend of Ivan, who the tzar desperately appeals to for friendship, which his ways make impossible. Here you have the full integrity of a real man who just can't compromise with his conscience and sense of right and wrong, while Ivan is way beyond any hope of insight in this matter. The metropolitan dominates the film, and the film is a masterpiece mainly because of him.Of course, there is very much you miss of Ivan's other aspects as a tzar. Neither Eisenstein nor Lungin included the episode of the slaughter of his son Ivan, and concentrating exclusively on the personal relationship between the tzar and the metropolitan, the film feels more episodic like a rhapsody than like an accomplished epic. There is certainly room in the future for a part IV of the complex, gigantic and humanly unfathomable story of the most debatable of Russian tzars.

Who was Ivan the Terrible? Was he really as terrible as the name suggests or it this mostly myth and bad PR? Pawel Lungin seems to agree with the previous and paints a terrifying portrait of his persona with the ultimate counterpoint in Metropolitanate Philipp, the religious overseer of Moscow and the Church. In this tale of madness, torture and dementia the innocent will perish, but will stick with their ideals, while the cruel remain with only eternal damnation that awaits them...Both main actors Pyotr Mamonov (Ivan) and Oleg Yankovskiy (Philipp) are a real tour de force. They are absolutely unbelievably good in the parts they play and especially Mamonov gives possibly the best performance I have seen in years. And yet with some much going for the movie in the actor department I felt massively under-awed by the direction of this movie.The story never really flows or builds and essentially history passes this movie by. This would be acceptable if the focus on the two protagonists was well handled and showed a consistent cause and effect. However we never really get to feel what is happening in Russia and how that is affecting the Tsar. In the end most is left to imagination or historical knowledge, as the movie merely suggests several key moments in time, but all this happens off screen. The background - so necessary for clarity - is hardly mentioned or is passed totally. In the end you never really understand the changes in Ivan and the engulfing madness. Additionally his actions and words are incoherent and show either bad script-doctoring or an inability to convey the character as being inconsistent in his madness. Within several minutes you see Ivan turn from a god-fearing fanatic claiming all his deeds are in the name of God and for his glory into someone claiming that ruling a country takes place outside of God. No credible build-up was really given to such a sudden change of views.All in all the madness is inconsistent and after watching the movie I feel like I know less about Ivan than before watching it. Also the overly religious motifs, which plague the movie really irked me in the wrong places.

Pavel Lungin's flawed power house film is more a film for the head for the heart-then again it grabs you by the throat and squeezes.Nominally the story of Tsar Ivan (the terrible) battling with his Metropolitan (head of the church). The film is a battle between vengeance and mercy, its an allegory between belief and certainty, a reflection of self vision and the vision of mankind, a look at the Stalin years in Russia, and the madness of rulers in general.Its a kick in the chest.More interested in making a point the film is more an essay or fantasia or poem rather then straight narrative. There is a plot, its just that some of the details are lost and people represent things more than are characters, the Jester is Satan, the little girl grace... There is graphic realism and yet there are miracles that seem both right and wildly out of place (the floating icon) I'm kicked to the curb and I know this one is going to haunt me for days.supposedly this won the Russian Oscar...Not for all tastes...but manna from heaven for those it clicks with