The Karamazovs is a film that has left quite an impression on me, all the more so that I didn't expect it to.
At the beginning, a group of actors leave Prague for Krakow, Poland, where they should take part in an alternative Dostoyevsky festival in a steel mill. They arrive there, and in order to get used to the place they - at one go - rehearse the play they are to perform the following day - The Brothers Karamazov, a theatre adaptation of the novel. In order to be able to follow and enjoy the play, you don't need to be familiar with the novel. The adaptation is well structured and only focused on a few themes, so there's no danger you could get lost in it. Now, I'm sure that most of you, like me, have never seen a better rendering of a play-within-a-movie than this. All the actors are good, all the five male leads are fantastic. Thanks to them and also thanks to the beautiful cinematography and music, I physically realized where the adjective "breathtaking" took its origin from.
Next to the play itself, which occupies some 70% of the film, we watch what happens offstage, both to the actors and, significantly, to one of the onlooking Polish workers, who - in spite of a personal tragedy of his - is unable to take his eyes off the play. The actors' stepping in and out of their roles, it seems to me, adds a lot to the impact of their performance. On a more general level, the occasional breaking of the play's illusion, the being kicked out of the world of Dostoyevsky's heroes to the "real" one, makes you realise the two worlds, the tow realities, mirror each other in many ways; they - as it were - make comments on one another. The nature of these comments does not allow an unambiguous interpretation, and you'll certainly hear something different from what I heard. But that's all right. After all, this film is a work of art.
At the beginning, a group of actors leave Prague for Krakow, Poland, where they should take part in an alternative Dostoyevsky festival in a steel mill. They arrive there, and in order to get used to the place they - at one go - rehearse the play they are to perform the following day - The Brothers Karamazov, a theatre adaptation of the novel. In order to be able to follow and enjoy the play, you don't need to be familiar with the novel. The adaptation is well structured and only focused on a few themes, so there's no danger you could get lost in it. Now, I'm sure that most of you, like me, have never seen a better rendering of a play-within-a-movie than this. All the actors are good, all the five male leads are fantastic. Thanks to them and also thanks to the beautiful cinematography and music, I physically realized where the adjective "breathtaking" took its origin from.
Next to the play itself, which occupies some 70% of the film, we watch what happens offstage, both to the actors and, significantly, to one of the onlooking Polish workers, who - in spite of a personal tragedy of his - is unable to take his eyes off the play. The actors' stepping in and out of their roles, it seems to me, adds a lot to the impact of their performance. On a more general level, the occasional breaking of the play's illusion, the being kicked out of the world of Dostoyevsky's heroes to the "real" one, makes you realise the two worlds, the tow realities, mirror each other in many ways; they - as it were - make comments on one another. The nature of these comments does not allow an unambiguous interpretation, and you'll certainly hear something different from what I heard. But that's all right. After all, this film is a work of art.