Kazaki (1961) User Reviews

a bad adaptation but still worth seeing.

[elsinefilo · 1 August 2005]

I read "The Cossacks" two years ago. I always say watching an adaptation can't be as good as reading the original work of art(book).That's why I wasn't expecting so much from the film.I guess it explains a lot why the movie is still awaiting 5 votes. Well no matter what adaptation movies should be seen to visualize the world of a classic author like Dostoyevsky. On the one side the simple Cossacks who haven't disconnected from their culture,mores and values and on the other side the aristocratic pure Russian officials who are assigned to the lands of Cossacks. Russia is still a country that experiences such dilemmas and ambivalence.The book is the first step that Tolstoys takes to mastery of literature that's why I do suppose we should at least display the patience to see the adaptation. No matter how bad they are I think I should see every adaptation that's why I saw this one . And I am happy at least I saw it "such an old movie that is in a language I can't speak" no matter how bad an adaptation it is.

Disastrous Results of "Socialist Realism"

[ilamos2 · 2/10 · 17 December 2005]

Last night i watched Kazaki (1961) by Vasili Pronin, adapted from a book of Tolstoy, thanks to a TV channel in Turkey that broadcasts a weird/rare Soviet film every Tuesday night at 02:00AM.

I watched many movies of the same era, and this is really one of the "best" that exemplifies the serious results of the obligatory admission to "the party line" in cinema.

A mediocre plot dealing with a love affair with propaganda sequences in the beginning and at the end of the film where we see operating harvesters, vast sown lands and cheerful peasants singing and marching, presumably, towards the bright feature of socialism.

This film so exquisitely portrays how the straitjacket called "socialist realism" as practiced in the Soviets kills cinema, transforms any kind of creative activity into mere garbage that i would really like it to be seen and debated more widely.

what the hell is in the comments? Elsifenello and ilamos2 not wrong

[ishashyil · 8/10 · 18 April 2023]

What the hell is in the comments? Elsifenello and ilamos2 wrong, the film is quite good for its time, it was even presented at Cannes, but it's not perfect, but it's still in 1961 years old, the specifics of the time must be taken into account, well, especially for Elsifenello I'll write that the film is based on Tolstoy and not on Dostoevsky and no problems with the aristocracy and with the Cossack landowners in Russia for 100 years already not, ailamos2 in general, he wrote some kind of schizophrenia, in the film is no "ubiquitous socialist realism and the general party line" and where did you even manage to see it : " Mediocre plot dealing with love affair with propaganda sequences in the beginning and at the end of the film where we see operating harvesters, vast sown lands and cheerful peasants singing and marching, presumably, towards the bright feature of socialism",this is not in the film, since the film takes place in the 19th century and it is based on the story of Leo Tolstoy, did you watch the movie well? If they watched it at all, because,you are completely wrong about the movie, you need to rewatch his.