The best scene


Spoiler

The best scene is when Nicholas returns to the palace after having abdicated and crumbles before Alexandra, mumbling 'please -- don't -- don't -- please'. I saw bits of this film many years ago, and that scene really struck me then. Just rewatched it recently, and the scene is still very powerful.

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I like the scenes following Alexis birth; Nicholas and Alexandra all happy and hopeful in their private chambers (before the bad news).At intermission, I rarely continue watching: too painful!

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To me, the most memorable scene is Alexis sadly saying to Nicholas "There is no hope, is there, father?".

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I agree. His sled accident was clearly a suicide attempt.

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His sled accident was clearly a suicide attempt.


It was certainly presented that way in the movie, but this is one of the areas where the film diverged somewhat from fact. There's no evidence that Alexei felt hopeless or even really understood the likely fate of the family. The one who seemed to do so was Olga, the others remained fairly cheerful (though bored)and since they knew almost nothing of the outside world, they had little to speculate on.

Alexei had been extremely well all that winter in Tobolsk and had thoroughly enjoyed tobogganing on that sled; he built a snow mountain on the grounds and spent hours sledding down it.

There's a picture of it here:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/537265430523567434/

Alexei was devastated when the guards tore it down because they didn't want the Romanovs looking out over the fence. After that, he took to tobogganing in the house with his friend Kolya, a doctor's son who visited regularly. Alexei records in his diary that he and Kolya would slide down the stairs for hours.

So, he had slid down many times without injuring himself. It's not at all certain that the hemorrhaging that crippled him at the end of his life was the result of sledding on the stairs. That idea has only one source, a daughter of Dr. Botkin who was staying in town (but had no contact with Alexei) and was repeating what she thought she had heard years earlier. Nicholas, in his diary, said that Alexei's hemorrhage developed after coughing fits; Alexandra writes a litter to her friend Anna around this time, saying that Alexei has been playing lots of rough games, running, skipping and sledding, and she doesn't know which activity might have injured him. She mentions his coughing, too. If there was a significant accident with the sled, she would certainly have known.

I don't have a problem with films taking some liberties, though I didn't think making Alexei this serious, despondent character was a good choice. He was a lively, playful kid, without much sense of the future. It's a characteristic of hemophiliac boys to engage in risk-taking behavior (this was known at the time); so in real life, though not in the movie, Alexei had no apparent suicidal intentions.

I found the scenes where the Romanovs met with unexpected friendly overtures t be the most moving. Like with Kerensky, who tried in his way to protect them, and the first captain of the guard at Tobolsk, who did the same. It's the more poignant because we know what will happen and that their good will will bear no fruit.


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Thank you for that long and thoughtful reply. I'm kind of on a Romanov kick right now, reading Helen Rappaport's The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra. I love reading the letters of historical personages, and they become so real when you get to 'hear their voices' like that. I think the saddest part was when the King of England wasn't even allowed to offer them a safe haven, even though they were close relatives. It's shocking how fast Nicholas aged; I saw a 1912 photo of him, long before the war began, and he looked fifty easy.

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If you enjoyed Rappaport's book, you will certainly enjoy watching (if you haven't seen it already) this 2-part BBC documentary on "Russia's Lost Princesses," which you can find here:

Part One: A Gilded Cage
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25kcrc_russia-s-lost-princesses-e01-the-gilded-cage_news


Part Two: A World Turned Upside Down
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25kbb2_russia-s-lost-princesses-e02-the-world-turned-upside-down_news

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Thank you for those links! It's going to be a long holiday weekend with endless football so I'll have more than enough time to watch them both.

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