'Anna Karenina' - Movie Review

ONE might be led to think that because Tolstoy's tragic novel has been adapted enough times to make Tolstoy roll over in his grave*, Joe Wright's 2012 rendition has nothing new to offer. Well - one would be wrong. 

*Tolstoy eventually wrote that Anna Karenina was "an abomination that no longer exists for me".

With a quick Google search anyone can track all 12 of the previous big screen adaptations of Anna Karenina. And then there's the plays, radio broadcasts, TV adaptions, ballets, and even operas. Who knows, soon there will likely be the Anna Karenina Oscar awarded to the adapted screenplay which has been done to hell and back. 

Yet despite all this, Joe Wright's Anna Karenina is different. The differences, which are vast, come from the attitude Wright took in retelling the classic. Often when filmmakers take on a gigantic project such as this they are so overwhelmed and awe struck by the literary genius of Tolstoy that they just try and appease the Tolstoy-diehards and in the process make a safe film. In this instalment we see a filmmaker and script writer (Tom Stoppard) who seek to take risks and shape the film to their imagination. This is best seen in the decision to film much of the story in a 19th century theatre. 

This is a video created by Focus explaining how and why they built the set.

The streets, offices and homes of Moscow and St. Petersburg are recreated by elaborate stage sets, and it's only when we venture out to the rural Tolstoy-esque side of Russia that we leave the theatre and face reality. While it takes time to get used to seeing characters make their way across backdrops, around theatre props and up through the catwalk and backstage rigging, this creative styling works perfectly to recreate the falsity of Russian society and the fickleness of the elite. We get the feeling early on that all of Russian life is artificial and projected to be something you'd find on a stage.

If ever there was a shot which summed up a time period - this is it. You can see how Russian high society attempted to copy French parlours.

But the film is not just another flashy costume design period flick (even though it just won Best Costume Design at the Oscars). The camera hustles through the recreated world and around the stage with reckless abandon, while the dresses, suits and night attire are contrasted intriguingly with the rural Russia of Constantine Levin - begging the same questions of materialism we ask of ourselves today. The music helps to intensify the performances and heighten the passion between the adulteress and her man boy-in-uniform. But perhaps what is most bedazzling about Wright's rendition is that he uses all these creative elements to turn a 900 page novel into a frantic two hours of compelling and utterly sublime tragedy... of Shakespearan proportions! 

It's all in the eyes - Keira's got it.

The catalyst in this tragedy is also arguably the most famous adulteress in all of literature (although Madame Bovary might challenge such a claim), Anna Karenina. Anna is played by a distinctly darker looking Keira Knightley, whose slender build fits the elegant gowns of the time to perfection. However, it is Keira's ability to transform her smouldering dark eyes to possess the fragility, passion and madness of Anna which wins over audiences. She may not look like the Anna we conjured in our minds but she more than fulfils the 'demonic' nature of her personality after she gives in to the 'love' she cannot deny. After hearing a lecturer drone on about character arcs yesterday, I feel it is my duty to point out that there is no sadder arc than that of Anna's. We feel her trauma, we warn her about Vronsky, we throw our hands in the air at Karenin and sob at the untimely arrival of a certain train. 

The men who surround Anna are as baffling as the society we are thursted into. Oblonsky's infidelity at the start of the film not only leads Anna to Vronsky but it also foreshadows what dominates the film. And it's sad that Anna's love triangle consumes the film because the relationship between Levin and Kitty is what sold me on the book the first time round. Levin is, after all, something of an auto-biographical sketch of Tolstoy at the time. Domhnall Gleeson, who plays Levin, never really makes the cut for me. He has some seriousness about himself but after reading the book I feel the soul of Levin has been cut out to be replaced by a boy who is just consumed by a girl. I suppose this is when I urge the viewer to read the book because the transformation of Levin possesses depth of which I've never seen in a novel since. 

The best actors eventually take ugly roles - he's a long way from Alfie!

The highest praise goes deservedly to Jude Law who plays Anna's conservative and pharisaic husband better than I could have ever imagined. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were hearing about Jude's fiance leaving him after he was caught with the nanny? And now he plays a character who stops at nothing to defend the old order and cripple his cheating partner - ironic! 

It's in the way Jude walks and talks that I'm convinced I couldn't have conjured a better picture of Karenin whilst reading the book. His hands are kept behind his back in a Napoleonic fashion, and his back is slightly lowered as if he's so deep in thought that his head is weighing him down. In a movie which moves frantically to-and-fro, here is a character who is purposely slow and patient - in essence he's the perfect politician. And then, after all the pomp and grandeur of Karenin - where he announces to Anna that they "are bound together by god and this can only be broken by a crime against god!", comes the line which shatters audiences everywhere,

"What did I do to deserve this?" 

We can shout back at Karenin that he defends an order which does not give 'love' a chance, but instead we are left silent and feel for him. This is the beauty of Tolstoy, there is no black and white - only grey.

In contrast with Karenin's lack of visible appeal and passionless life is the Casanova of high society, Count Vronsky - Anna's lover. Perfectly dressed in silky smooth cavalry frocks, and possessing blond curls to boot, Vronsky wastes no time in using his looks to challenge Dorian Gray to a game of sexual hedonism - the ultimate target being a married woman. The sexuality and eroticism between Anna and Vronsky has never been done in such an unabashed way - but that's Hollywood in 2012 for you. Heck HBO would call this movie soft-core compared to its highly sexual, yet not always relevant, sex scenes. 

 

The balls were spectacular and really captured the intensity...

But it was that dance between Vronsky and Anna - the one where the other dancers froze - that stole the show!

Joe Wright's Anna Karenina is a daring rendition of a classic which studies the different types of love (and lust?). The core themes of true love and love lost run deep and keep audiences grasping their armrests - but what the book achieves in delving into the agonising struggle of the destitute, faith in God and the social and political issues of imperial Russia aren't quite captured in the film. Audiences feel the tragedy and get a sense of the conflict between the sacred and the profane but they never quite own it. 

7/10