LEO TOLSTOY'S ANNA KARENINA

**^{1/2 out of} ****

Compressed Karenina a doomed affair

Condensing Leo Tolstoy's novel about a Russian aristocratic woman's scandalous affair into a two-hour film was an ambitious undertaking that was destined to fail. The result is a rushed affair, showing only flashes of the novel's intelligence and of its characters' complexities, and betraying even less of its dramatic urgency.  

LEO TOLSTOY'S ANNA KARENINA offers only uninvolving glimpses of its characters, and one wished that director Bernard Rose had ambition to spare to let the narratives take their time.

The film is a glorious failure, however. When it finds its moments, the film does so quite brilliantly. Those moments of undistilled Tolstoy resound wonderfully on-screen and makes one long for more patience with his text.

But too often Rose resorts to clumsy aids in his distillation of Tolstoy. To avoid bewildering the viewer, changes in time and place are announced unsing cursive titles. To emphasize emotional uplift, vespers are used far too often.

Vespers aside, music by Russians Tchaikovsky, Profokiev and Rachmaninoff is used to wonderful effect, and the film is undeniably beautiful to watch. Interiors, from the Hermitage to Catherine's Winter Palace, are magnificently lush and lovingly shot, as are the moodier Russian exteriors.

Anna Karenina (Sophie Marceau) is a 28-year old mother married to Karenin (James Fox), a ministry official twenty years her senior. When she is spotted by the young military officer Count Vronsky (Sean Bean) getting off a train, he is smitten and is relentless in his pursuit of her.

Soon the Russian social circles get wind of their affair, and as the adulterous woman Anna finds herself increasingly isolated, even from her 8-year old son, as Karenin refuses to grant her a divorce.

Simultaneous with this tragic triangle is the initially-awkward romance between philosophically-inclined Levin (Alfred Molina) and Princess Kitty (Mia Kirshner): he proposes marrige to her, but her hopes are first inflamed by the dashing Vronsky.

ANNA KARENINA has many good performances, Kirshner being especially luminous, but sadly Marceau's Anna is the least impressive of the lot. Marceau reveals no emotional spirit behind the motions, as if inhabited by a central blankness. It is not quite understandable why Vronsky would fall for such a blank, though fetching, slate, nor was it convincing when the slate evinces mental torturings. Only when Anna is numbed by feelings of isolation and laudanum does this handicap become somewhat effective. The matter of Marceau's French accent betraying her during the spirited scenes is more difficult to excuse.

Style points for LEO TOLSTOY'S ANNA KARENINA, but the substance of the novel still waits for film justice.

LEO TOLSTOY'S ANNA KARENINA

Directed and written by Bernard Rose.

Adapted from the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

U.S.A. 1997

Review completed on April 15, 1997.