Raspoutine

A story which has been told and told and TOLD ;I have seen at least six of them and there is another one scheduled for 2012 starring Jean Reno.

This MTV version is watchable but too short ;a miniseries should have been made instead.Depardieu is good,but not as impressive as Pierre Brasseur (1953) and not more than Gert Froebe in "J'Ai Tué RASPOUTINE" (1967).Fanny Ardant is an excellent empress but she is not given enough time to shine .

Raspoutine is not completely demeaned :his firm stand against war is shown (he was a MOUJIK and he knew them) but the screenwriters do not really succeed in making us believe why Russian people hated that monk;after all many others praised him and wanted to see him,to touch him;the story is sometimes botched and obviously much time is given to the assassination.They say cyanide didn't work cause it was "cooked" in the cakes .

For users interested in the subject ,I would recommend " J'Ai Tué Raspoutine" (1967 ) by Robert Hossein,which begins with a short interview with Felix Iusupov,short before he died.

NB: The movie was shown on Xmas evening and some people said it was not a very good choice .