I found the scene where Vera and Peter go to the Consulate very touching indeed. They look so lost, but still so sure about their superiority.
By the way, does anyone know why was it so incorrect of them to visit the Consul? And why didn't he turn up? Because of the incorrecteness or something else?
As the saying goes... the time to make up your mind about people is never
I might be totally wrong because I am not familiar with this part of history or how consulates worked but from appearances of that scene, it was like any admin office so it wasn't like the head of it visits it often. That's my guess anyway. But I wondered too why it was "not a right thing to do" to visit the Consul. No idea.
shareIt was not the right thing to do because it was beneath the Belinsky's to actively call on the consul. The proper thing would have been for the consul to call on the Belinskys. However, this could not be done because the Belinsky had neither a suitable venue for entertaining nor the means to entertain. A bit silly since their backs were against the wall, but then, there it was. For Peter and Vera to don their finest clothes (albeit outdated) and go to the Consulate was tantamount to begging and beneath the princely dignity of the family.
shareOne of my favorite emotional scenes is when Grushenka starts crying on the boat after Sofia retrieves her daughter, Katya. It was clear that despite Grushenka's coldness towards Sofia, Grushenka did in fact deeply love her niece to the point of accepting her as a surrogate daughter. It was implied or assumed that Grushenka was close to her dead brother, the late husband of Sofia. As Grushenka mentioned, Katya reminded her of her brother - Katya had the eyes of her father, Grushenka's brother. Therefore it was one thing for Grushenka to love her own flesh-and-blood niece Katya, but still not give a wit about Sofia. Still, that scene was emotional for me to watch. I couldn't despise Grushenka after watching her sobbing over the loss of her niece.
shareI just watched the movie and had an entirely different response to Grushenka''s crying. I thought she was crying because she was a lonely and useless woman who had glommed onto her niece for her own personal meaning in life. Her *love* meant denying her niece from maintaining a powerful loving relationship with her own mother. How "loving" can that be? Did she think the niece wouldn't always mistrust or possibly despise her for this deceit, especially if the Countess had died(which seemed entirely possible-she was left in the shack with NO means of escape until her neighbor came back)?
I could despise Grushenka
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