Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story

Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel Anna Karenina is a tragic love story that still resonates today, 140 years after it was written. The Russian classic has been adapted into dozens of films and television interpretations, not to mention stage, musical theatre, ballet, opera and radio versions. Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story, directed by Karen Shakhnazarov, finds a unique angle by creating a chance encounter that isn’t in the novel: a discussion between Anna’s son, Sergei, and her lover, Alexei, thirty years after her horrible death.

In 1904, as the Russian and Japanese armies battle in bleak Manchuria, senior doctor Sergei (Kirill Grebenshchikov) discovers Vronsky (Max Matveev) is one of his patients in the military hospital. Trying to understand why his mother threw herself under a train, he asks Vronsky to recount his doomed affair with Anna (Elizaveta Boyarskaya).

What follows is Vronsky’s interpretation of the heartbreaking events. Anna succumbs to the charms of the handsome and persistent Vronsky, running away from her husband Karenin and son. They have a baby and Anna suffers postpartum psychosis, which she recovers from but she’s not the same. She becomes irritable and anxious as she moves back and forth between Karenin and Vronsky, dragging them down in the undertow of her twisted love triangle. But Anna’s steep decline in mental health doesn’t appear until the final scenes, so the tension hits in one big slap rather than a slow build.

The stunning, elaborate costumes and sets along with the beautiful orchestral score create a feast for the senses. The acting is compelling and mesmerising, enhanced by it being in Russian, contrasting with Hollywood versions. However, as the film only covers the basic plot points of the traditional story, it deletes the peripheral characters and storylines that make the novel so fascinating.

Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story fleshes out the aftermath of Anna’s horrific suicide, exploring how two of the characters may have lived out their lives had Tolstoy continued to tell their story.

Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story 
Russian Resurrection Film Festival 2017
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