SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jackson Booth-Millard I read that Russian director Sergei M. Eisenstein had intended to make a three part series, but he only managed to make the first two films, dying of a heart attack before he could complete it. I had to see if it was indeed the masterpiece it is claimed to be, especially as both parts appeared in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I'm not sure if the story was picking up where it left off, but basically Tsar Ivan IV (Nikolai Cherkasov) of Russia in the 16th Century, suffered the death of his wife Anastasia from poisoning, and his chief warrior Prince Andrei Kurbsky (Mikhail Nazvanov) defected to the Poles, and he makes a friend with Fyodor Kolychev (Andrei Abrikosov) who becomes Archbishop Philip the monk for Moscow. However Philip gets his decisions from the Boyars and tries to get Ivan to follow the church, but the Tsar in fact gets his private force the Oprichniks to find the Boyars. Led by Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya (Serafima Birman), Ivan's aunt, are planning to assassinate him in order to get her son Vladimir Andreyevich (Pavel Kadochnikov) on the throne. The Tsar does mock Vladimir with a crowning at a banquet and sends him in the robes to the cathedral where the assassin waits, and he does go out to do the murder, only to see the wrong man killed, and in the end Ivan kills the guilty people. Okay, I will be honest, I didn't catch on to all of this myself, it was hard to follow, and not just because I was trying to read the subtitles as well. Also starring Mikhail Zharov as Tsar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov and Aleksandr Mgebrov as Novgorod's Archbishop Pimen. What I understood of the story was good, the costume design is fantastic, the iconic imagery, such as the two scenes going into colour, is effective, it works without relying on moving camera-work (i.e. no pans or zooms), and there are certainly some poignant scenes, it may have be hard to read the subtitles due to scratchiness, but it is a historical drama to see. Very good!

adeyinw In the film Ivan the Terrible Part II, directed by Sergei Eisenstein and M. Filimonova, the main character, Nikolai Cherkasov, allows the piece to be dramatic with betrayal and no success with uniting a people. By having Cherkasov play Ivan, he is allowing himself to bring a little of Sergei Eisenstein's, whose is the writer, life into the film as well. This film that was made in 1959, allowed Eisenstein to use Ivan as a way to tell his good and bad that he has experienced while growing up. In Russia, Ivan was named Tsar, and soon after events were not going smoothly for him as planned. He wanted to unite Russia, but other people had different plans or did not think it could be done. As Ivan grew old with age, his power grew and greed as well. Also, people betraying him grew. His determination for unity and his greed in doing so led to others' actions against him. This caused him to lose his wife and his best friend. In Part II, we are given a better understanding of Ivan's pain and why he does or thinks certain things. His mother was killed just saying a few words to him before the boyars took him away. "Don't trust the boyars." Ivan lived with this for the rest of his life. Ivan's strong determination to unite Russia led to him being THE TERRIBLE as everyone called him. But during the request to come to the church, he declared himself Ivan the Terrible just like everyone else did. That is when people began to worry and the ultimate betrayal came into place, because of fear of Ivan. His own aunt that had betrayed him previously like everyone else in his life, requested to have him killed so that her son could be tsar. Before this thought was even processed in his aunt's brain, Ivan knew his wife was poisoned by his aunt, but did not chose to do anything until his cousin crossed the line and laughed at him in church. The use of Ivan's eyes told it all and that is why Ivan's aunt had to have him killed. Speaking of the eyes. Many eyes on the walls are used to give us the idea that you are always being watched. Not only are they always there, but at times in the same room but at different times, the eyes will change depending on the mood of the people in the room. For example, if there is sadness amongst a main character at the movement, then the eyes on the wall will show sadness. Also, the eyes of the people are used to communicate or express themselves as well. For example, in the opening scene of Part II, the ladies used their eyes at the palace of Poland to show interest either in Ivan's old friend or just to what he was saying. In the book, Ivan the Terrible, it says the following: Eyes in Ivan seem to have a life of their own. They move almost independently of their owners. Up and down, from side to side, slowly and swiftly, eyes draw lines inside the sockets, around the spaces their bodies inhabit, and to the depths beyond" (108). The use of the eyes in this film is what interested me. I have always been fascinated with the use of the body to explain or express something without saying a word. When I worked at an airport in Chicago, sometimes I came across people that did not speak English, so I had to use gestures to communicate with them. When I succeeded they felt helpful and I felt like I was on top of the word. So the non-verbal communication with the characters is what really stuck out for me.

nycritic Sergei Eisenstein had planned to make a trilogy about the life of the Russian czar Ivan Groznyy. This, the second part (and the last to be seen in its entirety since the third part exists only as a four-minute fragment), can be seen separately, since it goes into a flashback from when Ivan was a young boy, thrown into power by conspiracies not of his own making, a witness of the poisoning of his own mother and his wife, and the seeds of his hatred towards the boyars. A lonely existence, Eisenstein brings to life a movie that feels claustrophobic and dark all the same, very suffocating since it transpires almost entirely in interiors, giving way to an even stronger sense of menace. Even as a short film, IVAN THE TERRIBLE: PART II is a slow, escalating march towards the uncovering of an assassination plot meant to rid him from the throne in lieu of his cousin Vladimir Staritsky, a thing that his mother Eufrosinia wants with a vengeance, since this would mean power to the boyars. Visually stunning in its black and white sequences, the last half hour takes place almost entirely in color, and the experimental choice then used to colorize the film makes it all the a harrowing masterpiece in reds, blues, and greens.

flasuss SPOILERS hereinSecond and last part of Eisenstein's unfinished trilogy about the title character, it's surprisingly very different than any other of his films, including part one: if he was known for film the Russian myths and made them look even greater to the benefit of the communist regime, here the leading character is extremely humanized and it's far away from the noble hero of the previous films: betrayed by their friends, the woman he loved dead, and hated by those around him, Ivan gradually goes insane by the loneliness of the absolute power, and is so sad and obsessed to have company that he even begs on his knees to a corrupt bishop to have his friendship. The czar, like Alexander Nevsky, is clearly a representation of Stalin, and that humanization and the remind of the assassination of former allies certainly did not pleased the man which murdered more than any other in the history of the world, and the movie was censored until 1958, five years after the dictator death and ten years after the filmmaker passed away. In the end, Ivan the Terrible part II remained as one of, if not the best picture of the director, and one of the greatest achievements in the history of cinema; the genius defeated the genocidal.