Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Zhivago still great film
Dr Zhivago is a fascinating love story set in the Russia of the Revolution. The lovers are thrown together by circumstance. Sound trite & overdone? Not this version.
The book is riveting and I was doubtful that the poetry of the book would reach the film. It does. The cinematography is stunning. Each scene is like a wonderful painting that only enhances the drama of the lives of these people caught up in the turmoil of the time.
Yuri,a doctor who also writes beautful poetry, marries his childhood sweetheart, daughter of an upper-class family. Lara is the daughter of a mere seamstress who marries her lover, an impoverished student, Sasha. She has had an affair with an older man in Moscow but Sasha forgives her and they move away from Moscow.
When WWI hits, all men are conscripted but the Czar's Army is a brutal place to be. Pre-war revolutionary feelings ripen into full-blown rebellion.
Yuri has been inducted into the army due to his medical experience. He meets Lara in a field hospital. She is a volunteer nurse, searching for her missing husband.
Having found each other, and not knowing where their respective spouses are, they fall in love but they are loyal to ther marriage vows. Unfortunately the time comes when they part only to be swept up into the chaos of the Revolution.
Yuri's family is now in the country for safety and ironically their dacha is near a town where Lara has settled. Yuri enters the town one day and they meet again. This second meeting is more than they can resist and they begin their love affair but Yuri is kidnapped by the Red Army to supply medical aid. He doesn't see his family or Lara again for many months.
When he is able to return he only finds Lara and they spend an idyllic time together before the revolution pulls them apart again.
The combination of love and loss set in this turbulent time is engrossing. You will love this picture if you love a good story. And you will even learn a bit of history, too. Worth watching many times.

HOUSE CALLS IN THE SNOW
David Lean's extraordinary, expansive telling of Boris Pasternak's love-triangle story, set amidst the Russian Revolution. Omar Sharif is stunning as the title character (he's a doctor and a poet so how can he miss?) and Julie Christie is very lovely as Lara, the politically committed nurse he falls for over wife Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin). It is at once an intimate epic, superbly acted and impeccably crafted in every department. With Alec Guiness, Rod Steiger, Ralph Richardson, Tony Courtenay, Siobhan McKenna, Rita Tushingham, Klaus Kinski and many others. The highly memorable, Oscar-winning score is by Maurice Jarre. Other Academy Awards included screenplay (Robert Bolt), cinematography (Freddie Young) and art direction (John Box). Director Lean's particularly dynamic use of the wide Panavision screen means inevitably some loss of impact of television.

HOUSE CALLS IN THE SNOW
David Lean's extraordinary, expansive telling of Boris Pasternak's love-triangle story, set amidst the Russian Revolution. Omar Sharif is stunning as the title character (he's a doctor and a poet so how can he miss?) and Julie Christie is very lovely as Lara, the politically committed nurse he falls for over wife Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin). It is at once an intimate epic, superbly acted and impeccably crafted in every department. With Alec Guiness, Rod Steiger, Ralph Richardson, Tony Courtenay, Siobhan McKenna, Rita Tushingham, Klaus Kinski and many others. The highly memorable, Oscar-winning score is by Maurice Jarre. Other Academy Awards included screenplay (Robert Bolt), cinematography (Freddie Young) and art direction (John Box). Director Lean's particularly dynamic use of the wide Panavision screen means inevitably some loss of impact of television.