What's this about?

Lately, it seems like many of the movies/shows are just a rehash or reboot of things that have already been done. And so I started to dive into the past. It's been fun, but I find myself losing track of which ones I’ve seen and whether or not I enjoyed them. Sometimes the titles themselves just don't tell me enough to remember.

I wouldn’t have voluntarily watched a lot of these movies when I was younger. It’s strange how interests change. That goes for what I read, too. I have another blog that explores books. I’m mostly reading older fiction and memoirs, and some of the books have led me to movies/shows and vice versa. In those cases, I may post the book review over here as well.

There will be spoilers, which is different than my book reviews. That’s mostly because I want to have enough information to help me remember what I’ve seen. I’m getting older. The brain doesn’t cooperate like it used to. What can I say? The gray hairs are catching up with me!

Monday, January 8, 2024

War and Peace (1966-67 film series)

I spent a lot of my day watching this epic series. I'd heard it used a lot of extras, and I wasn't disappointed. I'm not going to try and explain the entire plot of this 7-hour series. I'll just say I tried to read the book and didn't make it.

Once I finished it, I wanted to take some time to reflect on what I'd watched. I didn't look up any of the information I was itching to find out or try to find out anything about the production of the film. It was rough. I was so curious!

There are three main characters in this series: Andrei, Natasha and Pierre. The fourth part revolved around the year 1812. Out of these three, Andrei was my favorite. So the end was ruined for me. I found Natasha to be a flighty, spoiled brat. Pierre was so downtrodden for most of the film, it was hard to like him.

When I read the book, I had issues with the characters, but my main problem was the descriptions of war. Watching this was 100% different. I was mesmerized watching these battle scenes. They used so many people and horses, it was crazy. It was the first time I'd considered what happened when the cavalry falls. I watched a herd of saddled horses running around the battlefield. From what I read, there were 12,000 men and hundreds of horses in the scene. I read around 900. I just can't put into words how mesmerizing it was to watch.

When I was watching the characters, other than Natasha, it was interesting to see how they helped to bring the bigger picture together. I'm not going to say this was a series about Russia, nor was it about the individual. I think it had deeper themes that I'm not going to go into here. The other thing to be aware of is this is in Russian. The version I watched had subtitles for the Russian, but when people spoke French, most of the time there weren't subtitles. It was slightly disappointing.

There are a few drawn-out scenes and some strange music/sound choices, but they aren't that distracting. Would I watch this again? Yes, I believe I would. Maybe not all in one day, but I didn't feel like I spent all day on it. I'd like to find a different version and hope for some better subtitles. Good Series!



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