‘War and Peace’ or — ‘Lord of the Rings’… for Reals?
When I tell you that you’ll have seen nothing like Sergei Bondarchuk’s ‘War and Peace’ (1966) I can do so with total confidence because there is, literally, nothing else like it. Ever. This isn’t a subjective opinion but a simple, brute, objective fact because to make ‘War and Peace’ you wouldn’t just need the clout of, say, a DeMille, the finances of MGM or even the backing of all of Hollywood but, instead, thousands of horses, tens of thousands of extras, a fake city, the full co-operation of the nation’s military, unlimited resources and access to the full might of the ENTIRE Soviet Union currently engaged in a cinematic arms-race with the West. So yeah, all that. In fact, I think if the U.S.S.R. hadn’t spent so much time and money on this film that they could easily have won the Space Race instead.
Yet what’s most striking about Bondarchuk’s achievement isn’t the epic spectacle but the clarity of storytelling, the revealing of precise emotional states and the careful placing of distinct characters on such a vast canvas. You’ll have your socks blown off by the spectacle but it’s the human moments that keep it all together.
I won’t go into the story in any great detail — love triangle in Russia then Napoleon pops-up and trashes the place — but will focus, rather, on style and execution. What sort of epic would this be? Would it have the crafted poise of Visconti? The detached perfectionism of Kubrick? Maybe the robust vigour of Mann? Turns out if I had to compare Bondarchuk to anyone it would be Mario Bava mixed with Peter Jackson as this is highly inventive, varied, large-scale filmmaking for a popular audience (this is highly accessible cinema). Oh, and a touch of Tarkovsky but this is Russia so, you know — obvs.
So it’s not just battles and balls that we’re treated to but also everything from Giallo-esque lurid lighting, split-screen work, POVs, model and miniature work, matte paintings, optical effects, the breaking up of visual spaces, hallucinogenic dream worlds, God’s eye camera fly-overs, New Wave editing and so, SO much more. Bondarchuk is constantly taking risks, making bold experiments, swinging for the fences and every single one of them (across a SEVEN HOUR movie) works! And it’s all and always in service of the story.
A great example is when Natasha attends her first ball. The dazzling palace, countless costumes and glittering lights are introduced by sweeping camera moves designed to bring tears to the eyes which is exactly what happens to Natasha as she is overwhelmed by it all. The camera cuts to her POV taking it all in. The image starts to glisten as her eyes fill with tears. The camera cuts back to observing Natasha but the introduction of her tears has allowed Bondarchuk to dissolve the space all around her into a shimmering field of colour and light. The effect is of breathtaking and almost unbearable emotion and lustre.
Another arresting moment of transcendental gobsmackery is towards the end of part one when Bolkonsky is looking up at the night sky, the Moon shining through the trees whereupon his imagination takes flight over the countryside in a rapturous soaring. Again, it is almost unbearable in its emotional impact and had me clutching the sides of my sofa as I started violently hyperventilating from what I was witnessing.
But it’s not all heart-stopping beauty. There’s also brain-melting horror.
The Battle of Borodino is a battle sequence so unfathomably large in scale and scope that it dwarves not just every single other battle sequence put to film but easily dwarves every single other battle sequence put to film COMBINED and still with plenty of room left for more. It’s like watching ‘LotR’s Battle for Pelennor Fields except even bigger and filmed for real.
As a brief side-note I wouldn’t be surprised if Peter Jackson and his team watched this before making their movie because there’s a few camera shots (camera flying directly over head etc) that bear a striking similarity, as well as Bondarchuk’s film providing a blueprint as to how to clearly show so much strategy and chaos on screen without it sprawling out of control.
In fact, you could argue Bondarchuk does deliberately let things get out of control because the Battle of Borodino is so overwhelming, so much of an onslaught and so sickening (just to warn you — there are some very nasty horse falls in this) that it pummels you into exhaustion. And it’s not just the eye-popping scale but the sound design (highly sophisticated), aggressive editing, overpowering score, montage and bursts of imagery that add to the delirium. As I keep saying — there is nothing, and I mean N.O.T.H.I.N.G! else like this.
Still, it’s the quiet moments that hit deepest: the passing of clouds against a blue sky, the hazy orange ball of the Sun over mist-wreathed plains that would make someone like Terrence Malick weep with envy as Bondarchuk’s camera reveals the secular mysticism of “the land”. It is these that make ‘War and Peace’ such a shattering experience and permanently lodge in the soul.
I’ll stop here as words are failing me. But trust me, you don’t want to miss this one so if any of this in any way appeals to you then I’d urge you to watch ‘War and Peace’ sooner rather than later because, as Tolstoy himself would say, often the “later” never comes. Don’t let this one pass you by.
