There is an early scene where the Prince meets the Epanchins. He tells them how to be happy. He recounts a poor, abandoned, and abused woman from a village he visited. The tale is told while the camera holds on the Prince’s face. It is this moment in which I completely trusted the film to capture the true essence of the novel and author. While this scene sacrificed an even greater moment, the Prince’s expounding on capital punishment, the film emphasizes what matters: the Prince and his relation to the world at large.
Pyryev uses close-ups to evoke an enveloping world of expressive and agonizing characters. The editing ties faces together creating dramatic showdowns and reactions. A particular exchange of looks between Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin pierces like daggers. Ganya’s numerous expressions of pained reactions captures the double-sided coin of tragedy and comedy embedded in the narrative.
While the film only adapts the first part of the novel, it does a good job planting the necessary seeds for what would come. I particularly loved the use of music and song in the film, often informing the overarching themes or foretelling the future. One noticeable change in the film is its emphasis and explicitness it expounds on Natasya’s past and her relationship with Totsky. I didn’t mind this shift so much as it doesn’t upset the balanced relationship between the main participants: Myshkin, Natasya, Rogozhin.
This is a great adaptation and I would have loved to see the rest of the novel in Pyryev’s hands. Funny too, because I didn’t as much care for his adaptation of White Nights.
There is an early scene where the Prince meets the Epanchins. He tells them how to be happy. He recounts a poor, abandoned, and abused woman from a village he visited. The tale is told while the camera holds on the Prince’s face. It is this moment in which I completely trusted the film to capture the true essence of the novel and author. While this scene sacrificed an even greater moment, the Prince’s expounding on capital punishment, the film emphasizes what matters: the Prince and his relation to the world at large.
Pyryev uses close-ups to evoke an enveloping world of expressive and agonizing characters. The editing ties faces together creating dramatic showdowns and reactions. A particular exchange of looks between Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin pierces like daggers. Ganya’s numerous expressions of pained reactions captures the double-sided coin of tragedy and comedy embedded in the narrative.
While the film only adapts the first part of the novel, it does a good job planting the necessary seeds for what would come. I particularly loved the use of music and song in the film, often informing the overarching themes or foretelling the future. One noticeable change in the film is its emphasis and explicitness it expounds on Natasya’s past and her relationship with Totsky. I didn’t mind this shift so much as it doesn’t upset the balanced relationship between the main participants: Myshkin, Natasya, Rogozhin.
This is a great adaptation and I would have loved to see the rest of the novel in Pyryev’s hands. Funny too, because I didn’t as much care for his adaptation of White Nights.
