Boris Godunov

A historical film set in Russia. The year is 1598. The tsar is dead and the throne is empty. Boris Godunov is regent. He has effectively run the country for years. The people ask him to take the crown. They gather in the square and plead. It is staged. The people were brought and they know what to say. Boris accepts. But there is a problem. A child was killed years ago. Dmitri, the old tsar's young son. It is said Boris ordered it. There is no proof. But everyone is talking. From there the film is a story of governing. There is a famine. For three years there is no harvest and people die. The people find the reason: a murderer sits on the throne. There is a young monk in a monastery. Grigori reads a record and has an idea. He runs. He goes to Poland. There he declares himself Dmitri; he says he did not die. The Polish nobles support him. An army is raised. What the narrative is interested in is not a throne but legitimacy: its idea is that Boris governing well is of no use at all; an accusation is enough. Boris's own line is a collapse. He cannot sleep, he sees things, and his obsession with protecting his son grows. He teaches his son. Maps, accounts and affairs of state. The narrative builds it as a father's story as well. Boris dies at the end. His son takes the throne and lasts a few months. The last shot is on the silence of the people. The source is Alexander Pushkin's play and the text is in verse. The film keeps the play's language. The production is enormous. Thousands of extras, real locations, and large-scale ceremonial scenes. Sergei Bondarchuk both directs and plays the lead. He had made large-scale historical productions before. Sergei Bondarchuk, Alyona Bondarchuk, Georgi Burkov and Anatoly Romashin are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Soviet-era historical production and adaptations of verse drama. Who it is not for: anyone without the context; the narrative refers constantly to Russian history and there are a great many characters.