I can’t even begin to fathom how they were able to make this film. The scale is something the likes of which I have never seen before considering that there is no CGI and this is all practical. Sergei Bondarchuk is the prototype of the other epic director/actor artists we would see later in the works of Warren Beatty and Kenneth Branagh. The film is a lot, in the sense that it is very daunting. In between the massive battles and set pieces there are scenes that are so powerful they suck you in so hard that you feel you are there (such as the opening party or the duel in Part 2). The transitions between these moments is where the film finds its lulls, which is to be expected in a seven hour + film. Part 3 is probably the best of the four parts as it is really something else. The battle is gigantic, even moreso than the other battles we see before. I also believe that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were inspired for ‘The Bells’ episode of GAME OF THRONES by the way the Fall of Moscow is depicted here. The cinematography by Anatoly Petritsky, Yu-Lan Chen, and Alexander Shelenkov is fantastic at capturing the large scale battles in an omnipresent way but also able to zero in on small character point of view. It is masterful. Cinematography also compliments the amazing production design by Mikhail Bogdanov, Aleksandr Dikhtyar, Said Menyalshchikov, and Gennady Myasnikov and costume work by Vladimir Burmeyster, Nadezhda Buzina, Mikhail Chikovani, and V. Vavra. The combination of the three makes it feel like you are watching a moving painting. The amount of craft all over this film is insane. Its no wonder than it took six years to shoot and caused the death of a lot of horses. Other people to highlight are editor Tatyana Likhachyova and the performances by Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Lyudmila Savelyeva.
