This 1935 version of Leo Tolstoy's famous novel did pretty much what I was expecting it to -- strip the novel down to a standard, melodramatic love story.
Anna's affair with Vronsky and feud with her husband isn't the most interesting thing about Tolstoy's novel. It's how this love triangle is used to highlight aspects of Russian culture at the time, including attitudes about class, gender roles, sex, you name it. Anna isn't even the most interesting character, and though the book is named for her, she disappears for long stretches of time. The film's primary reason for existence is to showcase Greta Garbo in the title role, and she suffers as nobly as she always did, but what a dull affair the movie makes of that suffering. In the very first scene, Clarence Brown suggests that he might direct the film with something other than studio assembly line efficiency. A reverse tracking shot down the length of an opulently decked out dinner table calls attention to itself, and part of me wants to believe that this shot, visually mimicking the movement of a train between parallel tracks, was purposely used by Brown to foreshadow Anna's eventual tragedy. But this first shot is the last time Brown displays any amount of stylistic creativity, and it ends up sticking out like a sore thumb in a movie that's otherwise directed with pedestrian anonymity.
Grade: C
Anna's affair with Vronsky and feud with her husband isn't the most interesting thing about Tolstoy's novel. It's how this love triangle is used to highlight aspects of Russian culture at the time, including attitudes about class, gender roles, sex, you name it. Anna isn't even the most interesting character, and though the book is named for her, she disappears for long stretches of time. The film's primary reason for existence is to showcase Greta Garbo in the title role, and she suffers as nobly as she always did, but what a dull affair the movie makes of that suffering. In the very first scene, Clarence Brown suggests that he might direct the film with something other than studio assembly line efficiency. A reverse tracking shot down the length of an opulently decked out dinner table calls attention to itself, and part of me wants to believe that this shot, visually mimicking the movement of a train between parallel tracks, was purposely used by Brown to foreshadow Anna's eventual tragedy. But this first shot is the last time Brown displays any amount of stylistic creativity, and it ends up sticking out like a sore thumb in a movie that's otherwise directed with pedestrian anonymity.
Grade: C