Should be introduced to the western audience
This version of Zhivago is simply the best out there. It's far better than the british mini-series and also superior to Lean's film. Dont't get me wrong, Lean's "Zshivago" was great for it's times, but today it can be considered exceptional only when viewed as a classic. Aesthetics and naration conceptions
have changed a lot since 1965, so people await something comletely different from an epic novadays.
I think that the russian version depicts the spirit of the time (czarist russia, world war, revolution and the early soviet era) just greately, it has a lot of historical depth and this is very important for an epic movie of this scale.
As a viewer you just have to FEEL the atmosphere of those times, understand what happended and how huge and devastating the events were, how different people expirienced them, what they thought and felt. Only given this monumental background
full of historical details and atmosphere, the character drama and the personal tragedy of Zhivago, the story of his life, his deeds as a man and a poet, and his death, have the potential to develop their whole emotional power. And this potential is used simply amazing. The script has only a few flaws (which is quite an achivement considering the complexity of pasternak's book and the quantity of generally weak scripts from russia) and the actor peformances are outstanding. They capture the whole spirit of melancholy and predisitination, but also of strenght and love, and this feeiling of an higher, metaphysical existence so common to the high russian culture. It's the spirit you expect to see of revoultion through poetic eyes. The actress playing Lara is awesome in this role, but also the actors of Zhivago and Kamarovsky do everything right.
It's truly a great film, it should be released in the west (i was lucky to see it here in germany because a friend brought it from russia).