Doctor Zhivago Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Doctor Zhivago
Year: 1965
Director: David Lean 
Country: UK
Language: English 

A film that casts Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia), Julie Christie (Don't Look Now), Geraldine Chaplin (Cria Cuervos) and Alec Guiness (Kind Hearts and Coronets) has got to be absolute gold. Winner of multiple Academy Awards, iconic British director David Lean sweeps us with his third part of an undeclared War Trilogy (Bridge Over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago) There is a reason Lean is known as one of the greatest British Directors of all time, this film is just one example. 

Doctor Zhivago is about a woman named Lara (Julie Christie) who inspires debauchery in Komarovsky and can't compete with passion for the revolution of the man she marries, Pasha (Tom Courtenay) . Her true love is Zhivago (Omar Sharif ) who also loves his wife. The story is narrated by Zhivago's half brother Yevgraf (Alec Guinness), who has made his career in the Soviet Army. At the beginning of the film he is about to meet a young woman he believes may be the long lost daughter of Lara and Zhivago. 

David Lean's magnificent film about the Russian revolution is a picture that breathes life and is abundant in suffering and passion. It is the pinnacle of war and melodrama, a slave to romance, lust and heartache. It is a dire question of morality, deciphering the shaky grounds between adultery and true love. It is a timeless epic that weighs on our minds and our hearts, perhaps the closest war been made to resemble poetry. 

It is a film that must be watched over and over again, because the characters are incredibly complex. While Zhivago is the largely empathetic character, it is hard to know what is stirring in that brilliant mind.The cinematography is astounding, here we see a blizzard ridden Siberian wasteland, a magnificent ice castle and a raging war. Zhivago may be the most powerful of all Lean's films, certainly the score is one that will stand the test of time.

In conclusion, Doctor Zhivago is such a good film that it arguably makes the original source material, a 1957 novel by Boris Pasternak, even better. It is full of rich themes that stick in your mind. After Gone With the Wind, the highest grossing film of all time adjusting inflation, Zhivago is the second highest grossing film in MGM's history. When you consider that MGM released classics like 1939's Wizard of Oz and 1952's Singin in the Rain, this is a pretty good achievement. Praise it! 5/5