The Idiot

This is the first time ever that after reading a book, I see the film adaptation and (almost) everything is just as I imagined while reading the book! Absolutely amazing!!! The casting is just perfect (excepting one character), the atmosphere, just everything is wonderfully caught on film. The way Evgeny Mironov plays Prince Miushkin, and Olga Budina's acting... just superb!!! Not forgetting Vladimir Mashkov (Rogojin), Inna Churikova (Elizaveta Epanchina) and nearly all the rest of the cast!

Just a few minor points:

• Nastasia Philipovna was not as spectacular as I imagined. Somehow I expected more of her beauty and acting. - The film should have started at the train scene, just as in the book!!! I can't explain why, but I felt like this was essential for the beginning of the story.

But altogether, a wonderful job on this one, thank you Mr. Bortko!

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.

Vladimir Bortko's Idiot is a faithful translation of Dostoyevsky's novel. I had read the novel again just recently before watching this 10 part, nearly 10 hour miniseries and I don't think that any of the key characters or events are left out, which is quite a feat in itself. All the characters are true to the novel. I found that parts, especially in the second half, were slow, but I found the novel to be slow in those parts as well.

As an American with no knowledge of Russian, I had to rely on the translation, which varied from very good (at least grammatically correct) to nearly incomprehensible. It was as if the translator went occasionally crazy and then recovered. However, it was good enough in all parts to follow although I found myself hitting the pause button to read some of the longer captions. The DVD, as far as I know, is available in the US only at www.rbcmp3.com.

I found myself comparing this version to Kurosawa's. I think the two Russian male leads (Prince M. and Rogozhin) were as good as their Japanese counterparts, which is saying a lot, since Masayuki Mori and Toshiro Mifune were great in those parts. Mironov and Mashkov both capture the essence of their characters, the Prince's innocence and Rogozhin's violent love--hate relationship with Nastassya. I don't think the two female leads were as good as their Japanese counterparts, but it's difficult to beat the great Setsuko Hara. Kurosawa's film, cut down to 166 minutes, could only present a fraction of the novel's events and characters, but did a great job in choosing the ones to include. Only the character of Lebedev was really missed in the Japanese version. Lebedev, by the way, is terrific in this version. The Russian version really lets you get acquainted with the more minor characters like Hippolite and Keller.

Inna Churikova is a standout as Lizaveta Epanchina, a key character in both the films and novel.

Definitely recommended for fans of the novel and anyone who likes to settle into a good ten hour drama.

The director's daring quest to film a script as close as possible to the book is also the movie's greatest weakness. The second half of the book, and hence of the movie, is emotionally much less active than the first half, so the contrast is naturally emphasized due the movie time format. The result is that the second half of the movie is plain boring.

Everything else is a success - photography, music, cast ( a brilliant cast, except an overly hysteric and non-charming Nastasya ), costumes, the very atmosphere of the dark and psychotic Petersburg of Dostoyevsky are meticulously combined into a theatrical, even intimate, show. The Prince's protagonist Parfion gives energetic, raw-power perfomance ( too bad he wears same black suit through the whole movie, a bit pathetic ). The Prince's best parts are his thralling monologues, when one can almost physically sense how the others' cynicism is extinguished by his naive sincerity.

The movie should appeal to the fans of 'psychological' genre, as special effects and action are obviously absent here.

A fantastic achievement! Brilliant acting, especially Mironov and Inna Churikov. Olga Budina (Aglaya), Vladimir Ilyin (Lebedev), Aleksei Petrenko (General Ivolgin), and Vladimir Mashkov (Rogozhin) also give very strong performances. The masterful treatment of even the most minor characters (e.g. Yepanchin's butler) provides an incredibly rich texture for this amazing story. The main difficulty for the non-Russian speaker is the incredibly uneven quality of the English subtitles. As others have stated, the subtitles go from very good to suddenly unintelligible. In parts they annoying lag behind the dialog. The music is weak also, much of it computer-synthesized, and very repetitive. But those quibbles aside, this is a real masterpiece.