Review of Doctor Zhivago

The Russian revolution is a topic we don't often see put on film, so when I learned of this movie's existence I was interested to see how the event is portrayed. After discovering it was directed by the same person who made such lengthy masterpieces as Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge On the River Kwai, I knew I couldn't afford to let it pass. David Lean's masterful orchestration of the film's actors and pacing is fantastic here. As you can infer by the sheer amount of positive reviews, it comes as no surprise that Omar plays a very convincing title character, and Zhivago's relentless dedication to Lara throughout the movie is a theme we get familiar with very quickly. This is one of a handful movies I've watched where essentially the entire thing is a flashback. The very start of the movie where a Soviet general played by Alec Guinness is questioning a young girl about whether or not she remembers her father unquestionably takes place sometime in the 1940s. The actual storyline of the movie begins with the Russian revolution in which Lenin and his party of Bolsheviks force the tsar to resign, putting an end to a 3 century old dynasty. Fellow enjoyers of history will know the tsar is later executed along with his entire family, but this is not shown and is only alluded to. The movie also shows the passing of time very well, since the earlier parts of it are set in the Russian empire which at this point is pulling out of world war 1 since it is being torn apart from the inside out. After the new communist government is established, Zhivago is forced to move near the Ural mountains, and the unimaginable vastness of the brand new country of Soviet Russia is shown to dazzling effect (even though it is technically incorrect since the Urals are not snow capped). Finally, towards the end of the movie we get a glimpse of an elderly Zhivago and how his life in the tyrannically oppressive era of Stalin plays out. Overall, it seems that David Lean gave this famous story of romance during the October revolution the same impeccable treatment as he did with Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge On the River Kwai. Each time period shown in the movie is faithfully recreated, even if there are some errors in certain places (like background characters speaking spanish of all things on a Russian battlefield). It is undoubtedly worth giving this film a watch if you have already seen some other example's of Lean's work.