Stars: Sam Neill, Chris Marshall, Hans Matheson, Bill Paterson, Celia Imrie, Hugh Bonneville, Keira Knightley

Director: Giacomo Campiotti

Summary: The classic tale of Doctor Zhivago is retold. A young married man Yury Zhivago falls in love with a Lara. Meanwhile Lara attempts to escape from her lover Komarovsky. Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, Boris Pasternak's novel is brought to the small screen by screenwriter Andrew Davies.

A young married man Yury Zhivago falls in love with a Lara. Meanwhile Lara attempts to escape from her lover Komarovsky.
This television mini-series, based on Boris Pasternak's romantic novel, set amid the atrocious, bloody events of the Russian Revolution, stars Hans Matheson as Yury Zhivago and Keira Knightley as Lara. The supporting cast includes Sam Neill, Celia Imrie, Kris Marshall, and many others.

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David Lean's wintry adaptation of Boris Pasternak's melodramatic Russian Revolution romance, Doctor Zhivago, is a masterpiece of epic filmmaking, but one that risks leaving the viewer cold. Though none of the film was shot in the then USSR, Lean's assured technique nevertheless illuminates the breathtaking backgrounds magnificently: from the snowy wastes of the Urals to the strife-torn streets of Moscow, Lean stages a series of wonderful set-pieces showing war, revolution and its terrible aftermath. The problem lies in the foreground. Omar Sharif's entirely passive Zhivago is, we are told, a romantic poet of great sensitivity who internalises all his emotions and expresses them in verse. The trouble is the audience never gets to see a line of his poems, not even the centrally important "Lara" cycle. Thus Zhivago at the end of the picture is as much an emotional blank to us as he was at the beginning. His affair with the idealised beauty that is Julie Christie's Lara is also taken for granted by the filmmakers rather than set up in any convincing way, their mutual attraction remaining a mystery that creates a vacuum at the core of the picture. Given that none of the central characters with the exception of Rod Steiger's fire-breathing lecher Komarovsky ever give way to strong emotions, the romantic heart of the film remains oddly frigid. Matters are not helped by composer Maurice Jarre's incessant "Lara's Theme", which many will find teeth-grindingly irritating. Still, any David Lean epic, even a flawed one, is always going to be a first-class cinematic experience, and Zhivagois assuredly that.

On the DVD:A stunning anamorphic widescreen print is the ideal way to appreciate David Lean's craftsmanship and this movie's glorious, wintry cinematography. Maurice Jarre's "Lara's Theme" and the rest of his patchwork score can be heard in a music-only track, while Omar Sharif is joined by Lean's widow Sandra and Rod Steiger for an intermittent commentary. The second bonus disc contains a good hour-long making-of documentary plus 10 shorter contemporary documentaries giving various insights into the location shooting and the cast and crew. But it's the sheer beauty of the picture that will astonish and make this disc forever treasurable. --Mark Walker

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interviews
Year:	2002
Release Date:	July 12, 2004
Runtime:	226 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C C D 30013
Keywords:	General, Doctor, Zhivago, Tv, Drama
Genre:	Drama