The Film Doctor Zhivago - Essay Example

Doctor Zhivago The film Doctor Zhivago is never about the tale of the Revolution. The chaos, terror, and tragedy of the Revolution merely serve as the foundation against which a very emotional story of love is narrated. In the movie filmmaker David Lean focuses on several individuals, brave in their attempts to overcome the assaults of historical episodes that are determining the direction of their lives but over which, unluckily, they are powerless against. The Revolution lingers in the backdrop of the narrative, but it did not disappear.

It remained until the end of the movie. When I saw the movie, I was initially fascinated of the fact that it effectively related bigger social and political realities to a very personal story. However, it is obvious, even from the very beginning, that the film is all about romance. The fate of Zhivago, Lara, and the other characters in the film may also be their fate in another historical period. The film strongly proves to its audiences that a separation between historical events and the unfolding of a personal romance is impossible.

Simply put, the film intertwines war, love, and politics. However, I think there were some problems with the connection between war, love, and politics in the film. Primarily, an entire social order is devastated and another of a cruel, forceful system is created to replace it. But such events are merely shown in a handful and violently acted parts that are shoved abruptly through a scene of personal tragedy and afterward are as hastily inhibited. The greatest portion of this film is dedicated to the romantic view of the emotional connection and personal miseries of a few bourgeois who are inhumanely troubled and damaged by the larger forces of change.

It seems that this tragic love story is the theme upon which the film has decided to resolve the pressures of personal drama and spiritual tension that overwhelmed the Pasternak narrative. I felt that the movie has taken for granted the massive disorder of the Russian Revolution for the sake of displaying the ordinariness and triviality of a hopeless love affair. There are romantic films, political films, and war films, but, based on my experience and knowledge, it is very uncommon that a movie even tries to merge romance, politics, and war, much more pull it off.

Basically, the film is about a man trapped in the chaotic period of Revolution and Enlightenment in Russia. But then again, just like any other typical movies, it depicts the love affair between a man and a woman whose romance is driven by the political situations wherein they live. The story is muddled and disjointed at first glance. Obviously unconnected events take place; characters vanish; relationships are ruined; comeback occurs. However, at a more important way, all these episodes and characters are rooted in a huge landscape of interrelatedness.

Revolution, war, and politics, even though obviously troublesome and disruptive, are part of such landscape.