I'd seen Doctor Zhivago on television when I was a kid, as it was my mother's favorite film. Looking at it, in every way that counts as if for the first time, I'm taken by how important this was to my parents. My mom did end up marrying a mustached doctor who kind of looked like Omar Sharif. She had Julie Christie's hair style back then, and my dad used to whistle Lara's Theme all the time. It's a film romance that left a mark. I might even be the result. The story, told in the shadow of the Bolshevik revolution (indeed, Zhivago's role as mostly observer/pawn reveals his role in the original novel as a point of view character to talk ABOUT that part of history), is that of a doomed romance, circumstances and events preventing the leads from ever being together for long. The striking cold imagery - the iced houses, the pane of ice on the train, etc. - are at the heart of the film's themes. Cold Russia, cruel and distant love, and a barren philosophy (Lenin's communism) that replaces the personal with the State. I was wondering how a romance set around the birth of the Soviet Union was made and became a hit at the height of the Cold War. Well, by showing the worst side of the Revolution, and the protagonists as its victims, it served as an indictment of everything the West was told to fear. The focus on romance hid Pasternak's more blatant propaganda. Not to say the country's political turmoil didn't cause these very problems or adversely affect its national psyche, but there's definitely an agenda at play. I don't think it's one that registered with my mom though.

A fantastic film. One of David Lean's best, combining the epic sense of his later films with the intimate drama of his early ones. Almost equals Lawrence of Arabia, but not quite. Agree with alfredo90 about Julie Christie...

Wow, what a movie. I did not felt that it was 200 minutes.