Doctor Zhivago

This Valentine Day, wrap yourself in David Lean’s epic, all-star adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s love story, set against the tumult of the Russian Revolution. With Maurice Jarre’s haunting score, Omar Sharif as the soulful doctor/poet, and Julie Christie as his soul-mate, this is unapologetically a decadent’s take on the Revolution. Adjusted for inflation, it remains one of the ten biggest box office movies ever made.

February 14 Valentine’s Day Screening: 2 for 1 Tickets. You can also pre-order a BC-made Nicelife cocktail when buying your tickets.

Zhivago conjures grand romance and a gigantic, almost panoptic vision of the Russian landscape; Lean and Bolt pay tribute to a Tolstoyan ambition in Pasternak’s samizdat novel, and also to a real contemporary relevance: the story of a suppressed writer.

Omar Sharif is a fervent and idealistic Zhivago, the poet with a Chekhovian sideline in medicine. Julie Christie is candid, clear-eyed and lovely as Lara, his forbidden love, married to Pasha, the wounded revolutionary zealot – an excellent performance from Tom Courtenay. Alec Guinness plays Yevgraf, Zhivago’s half-brother and mandarin party official who is able to protect the wayward bourgeois poet – partly – from the ugly forces of political puritanism and Rod Steiger is excellent as the venal and sensuous Komarovsky whose seduction of Lara puts her destiny tragically out of joint.

There is a huge surging vehemence in the storytelling. It’s impossible not to be swept along and caught by the details: the pompous army officer falling into the barrel, the anarchist (played by a young Klaus Kinski) watching an old couple affectionately cuddling on the train, Zhivago himself suddenly shocked at his own haggard reflection in the mirror. Lean was hunting big game, and catching it.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

It’s impossible not to swoon.

Time Out

Soul-filling and thoroughly romantic.

Time Magazine