"Onegin" is a fairly good attempt at capturing the spirit of the original. One should praise the work of costume designer, the sets are also quite methodically reproduced. But unfortunately there are some things that cannot but jar on the ear and on the eye of the viewer: Olga sings "Oy, tsvetyot kalina" - this song appeared only in the mid 50-s of the 20th century in one of the Soviet films. So it couldn't be sung in the 19th century. The same about the waltz : it's "Na sopkah Manchzhurii" - this waltz appeared during the Russian - Japanese war, about 1904. These details mar the impression for the Russian viewer very much because they are as ridiculous as jets in films about World War II. The film appears to be made of two easily recognized parts - one made by the American camera men, and the other - filmed by the Russian camera crew. They have absolutely different ways of building the frame and focusing on different things. So American camera work is more Hollywood-like, pompous, and sometimes in the first half of the film the characters are evidently ill-mannered, which disappears altogether in the second "Saint-Petersburg" part. Good manners is not walking about stiff and pompous as if one has swallowed a ramrod. It's natural grace, ease and delicacy. That's why Tatiana could hardly lie in the boat with her legs spread as if an obstetrician were being busy with her, even when no one could see. Lensky is a very complex character, difficult to portray on the screen. On the one hand he will definitely end, as Pushkin himself wrote, as a country squire, fat, negligently dressed and romantic to the end at the same time. His romanticism is pitiable. But at the same time he believes in it, he is a poet, he is young, passionate and delicate. It seems to me that that part was botched. Lensky is pompous and ridiculous, hopelessly provincial the way it was done. I know that a film should not follow the text of the book doggedly but the scene of the duel surprised me because if I am not mistaken they were fighting in winter. I hardly understand what for the window-mills (on the water!) are. But on the whole it is very touching to see that people are still interested in Russian classics and managed to convey that obsession with love (not meaning bedroom scenes), that divine madness taking place against the background of the imperial majesty of Saint-Petersburg.
