Idiot

Mironov is Myshkin - incredible acting, with or without words, you know exactly what he is thinking and feeling. Absolutely wonderful adaptation of one of my favourite books. Mashkov is also outstanding as Rogozhin, a very scary man indeed! Mashkov does have a very commanding screen presence in everything I've ever seen him in (try Vor), but this was just great. All the lead actresses were great in my view, especially Olga Budina as Aglaya Ivanovna. I do have to echo the comments about the subtitles though! I was really surprised to find them on my DVD (no idea about international availability, bought here), I didn't think that a Russian TV series would have them, but I supposed the International Television Festival attention - and award for Mironov made them necessary. Very sad that a better job wasn't made. I was very glad I didn't need them! Some bits are fine, and others have daft spelling mistakes, and elementary mistakes in grammar and translation. What was going on? It really distracted from the actors' work. The best films with subtitles are those where you forget that you are watching a subtitled film. This cannot happen with these.