DVD Review - Anna Karenina

I am in the middle of reading Leo Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina. In fact, I am almost finished with it. I have seen a few filmed versions of the book. The 1997 version with Sophie Marceau as Anna is pretty decent. The BBC mini series with Helen McCrory (she played Cherie Blair in The Queen) is very good. But I wanted to see a version that I haven't seen so I selected this 1935 film that was directed by Clarence Brown.

In this version of the story Anna is played by the luminous Greta Garbo. In my opinion Garbo was born to play Anna. She falls for the dashing Vronsky (Frederic March). And it is easy to see why. Anna's husband Karenin (Basil Rathbone) is as cold as can be. But she is conflicted because she doesn't want to leave her son Sergei (Freddie Bartholomew).

I liked the film but it only tells part of the story. And several things were changed around. The book also focuses on Levin & Kitty and Stiva & Dolly. But here it is almost as if they are extras. But I guess that there is just so much you can do in a 95 minute film.

The film is beautifully shot in black and white by William Daniels. As I said before, Garbo is wonderful. And so is young Bartholomew. And there is wonderful Russian music throughout the film.

This version of Anna Karenina is a very pleasurable film experience. Just see it as a film and do not compare it to the book (it is a good idea to remember this whenever you see a book to screen adaptation. They are go entirely different mediums).