Anna Karenina (2012)

Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina, courtesy of Vogue

Levin: Sensual desire indulged for its own sake is the misuse of something sacred. ~from Anna Karenina (2012)

I have never considered myself to be a true intellectual and now I know for certain that I am not one. If I were an intellectual I would surely understand the reasoning behind filming most of the scenes from the 2012 version of Anna Karenina as a stage play, yes, even the horse race scene. As it is, I do not "get it." It seems like a conceit which serves to distract not only from the power of the story but from the power of the performances which move the story along. Neither do I understand the ballet-like quality of the beginning of the film, in which all the actors moved as in a dance without really dancing. The ball room sequence is especially disconcerting since the actors are supposed to be waltzing and yet keep flapping their arms and hands about like chickens. I know there is supposed to be a deep meaning to such gestures but not anything that makes sense to me.

The late Roger Ebert explains some of the reasons for the unusual staging:

As much as half of Wright's film is staged within an actual theater and uses not only the stage but the boxes and even the main floor — with seats removed — to present the action. We see the actors in the wings, the stage machinery, the trickery with backdrops, horses galloping across in a steeplechase.

All the world's a stage, and we but players on it. Yes, and particularly in Karenina's case, because she fails to realize how true that is. She makes choices that are unacceptable in the high society of St. Petersburg and Moscow, and behaves as if they were invisible. She doesn't seem to realize the audience is right there and paying close attention. She believes she can flaunt the rules and get away with it....

This is a sumptuous film — extravagantly staged and photographed, perhaps too much so for its own good. There are times when it is not quite clear if we are looking at characters in a story or players on a stage. Productions can sometimes upstage a story, but when the story is as considerable as "Anna Karenina," that can be a miscalculation.

Another thing I do not understand is why Keira Knightley is repeatedly cast as a heroine in historical roles. Anyone before the 1920's who was as thin as Keira is would have been considered consumptive or at least malnourished; they would not have been regarded as a beauty and certainly not as a  femme fatale. The thinner Keira becomes the more pronounced her jaw appears; in the film her strangely elongated face is yet another distraction from the complicated character she is portraying. Not that lovely heroines necessarily have to be portrayed by flawless beauties; Bette Davis was not a beauty but when she set out to play one in a film she was utterly convincing. Bette, however, was a great actress, which Keira is not. Furthermore, while Audrey Hepburn was also extremely thin, what she lacked in voluptuousness she made up for in the gracefulness of her movements. Miss Knightley has poor posture; anyone would hope that after so many historical roles she would have had some lessons in poise and deportment by now but obviously not. However, what saves her performance for me is her enormous dark eyes which convey Anna's growing despair as well as her ecstasies of passion. Her wardrobe is stunning as well.

The latest Anna Karenina conveys like no other precursor the pain suffered by a spouse who is betrayed and wounded by adultery. Even more so than in Tolstoy's novel, the character of Karenin as depicted by Jude Law is a sympathetic one, and in some ways the true hero of the story. He does everything he can to protect Anna from herself and her fatal passion for Vronsky but she is intent upon her own destruction. Without a word, Law can convey the magnitude of outrage, shame, horror, and heartbreak that Karenin is experiencing inside. He sees, if Anna does not, how her obsession with her lover will destroy not only herself but the home she and her husband have created, causing endless suffering for her children. It is a magnificent and soul-searing performance.

The film also conveys the main characters' sense of God in a way that is subtle but stirring. As Anna and her lover embrace in the forest, rejoicing in their solitude, Anna for a moment looks to the sky, aware that she cannot hide from God. Her sensual obsession with Vronsky becomes embittered and paranoid, leading to despair. Her despair hastens her end, especially as she knows she can no longer be with her son. As for the other women in the play, they come to happiness and love through caring for their children, which is an aspect of the book which the film seems to emphasize. Although the themes of religious hypocrisy and false societal values are explored as in the novel, the gist of the latest Anna Karenina is that family is everything and once outside of the family sphere there is nothing but death.

The odd ballroom dancing

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