The makers of this TV-serial adaption of Dostoevsky's novel really did a fantastic job, and succeeded, I think, in certain ways that are usually beyond the scope of an adaptation in the first place. As a rule, I usually try if I can to see a film adaptation of a work of literature as a separate work of art from its source. Film and writing are very different media, and things will usually work well in one medium that will not in another.
Importantly, a novel is usually read over several sittings, and a film usually can't encapsulate the totality of it in the length of one movie. Here, director Viktor Bortko really takes advantage of the fact that he is working with a ten-part series one one novel and trusts Dostoevsky as much as he can within those confines. I'd read the book more than a year before, and watching this I really felt as if I were experiencing all the absorption and intense emotional scenes of that once again.
Bortko allows himself to "park," so to speak at many key places of the novel and to allow complex passionate scenes to play out, such that nothing ever drags, the viewer is drawn in, and the characters can truly breathe and become real. In other fiction characters are sometimes criticized for being "unrealistic," but in my view part of what made Dostoevsky such a unique genius was the he could create characters who felt absolutely real but -- like, as we are reminded, our own selves -- act in illogical, contradictory, and self-defeating way. Here we have a chance to see that rather than be told it, and the characters to deliver the ecstatic hear-bearing speeches that Dostoevsky was also so prone to with full intensity and impact.
For that to work, of course, he had to have been -- and was -- blessed with an extraordinary cast. That's so down to even the very small roles, and would be too many to mention. But Mironov as the central role of Knyaz Myshkin is almost unspeakably good and if anything carries the production he does, bringing just the right combination of seemingly- contradictory moral forcefulness, spiritual strength, complete innocence, deep confusion, and joy and sadness at life. Lydia Velezheva and Olga Budina are equally but very differently mesmerizing as the two women who tear him apart -- both terribly attracted by but unable to practically deal with his absolutely unheard-of absolute honesty.
While the focus is on characters and scenes, all the stops have clearly been pulled out on historical accuracy (as far as I could see) and all elements of the production look excellent as well, from the costumes to the appropriately grotty or lavish apartments. Bortko's directs wisely, telling a lot visually when it isn't told verbally, such as with the isolation of Myshkin and Nastastya at the concert near the end, or the disturbing pieta of he and Rogozhin even nearer. Just a success on all levels.
Importantly, a novel is usually read over several sittings, and a film usually can't encapsulate the totality of it in the length of one movie. Here, director Viktor Bortko really takes advantage of the fact that he is working with a ten-part series one one novel and trusts Dostoevsky as much as he can within those confines. I'd read the book more than a year before, and watching this I really felt as if I were experiencing all the absorption and intense emotional scenes of that once again.
Bortko allows himself to "park," so to speak at many key places of the novel and to allow complex passionate scenes to play out, such that nothing ever drags, the viewer is drawn in, and the characters can truly breathe and become real. In other fiction characters are sometimes criticized for being "unrealistic," but in my view part of what made Dostoevsky such a unique genius was the he could create characters who felt absolutely real but -- like, as we are reminded, our own selves -- act in illogical, contradictory, and self-defeating way. Here we have a chance to see that rather than be told it, and the characters to deliver the ecstatic hear-bearing speeches that Dostoevsky was also so prone to with full intensity and impact.
For that to work, of course, he had to have been -- and was -- blessed with an extraordinary cast. That's so down to even the very small roles, and would be too many to mention. But Mironov as the central role of Knyaz Myshkin is almost unspeakably good and if anything carries the production he does, bringing just the right combination of seemingly- contradictory moral forcefulness, spiritual strength, complete innocence, deep confusion, and joy and sadness at life. Lydia Velezheva and Olga Budina are equally but very differently mesmerizing as the two women who tear him apart -- both terribly attracted by but unable to practically deal with his absolutely unheard-of absolute honesty.
While the focus is on characters and scenes, all the stops have clearly been pulled out on historical accuracy (as far as I could see) and all elements of the production look excellent as well, from the costumes to the appropriately grotty or lavish apartments. Bortko's directs wisely, telling a lot visually when it isn't told verbally, such as with the isolation of Myshkin and Nastastya at the concert near the end, or the disturbing pieta of he and Rogozhin even nearer. Just a success on all levels.