Just perfect...

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I agree with most of the prior reviewers (save the one who doesn't seem to understand cinema), and was especially struck by the art direction and cinematography. The B/W palette fit perfectly in both the castle and in the desolate moors, as Lear wandered mad with his fool. The acting was superb. However, I was completely flummoxed listening to it. I studied Russian for 3.5 years in school and on a high school summer trip to the USSR. Sadly I have forgotten most of it. However, the viewing I saw in 2009 certainly brought a lot of back in a strange way. I had read parts of Pasternak's Russian translation, and he did a wonderful job capturing the iambic pentameter, puns, and subtleties of Elizabethan English. However, the film, as others pointed out, used Estonian or Latvian actors whose Russian was so bad that much had to be looped after the filming by Russian speakers. Consequently, a long and flowery phrase in the Pasternak translation-- dutifully subtitled back into English-- is truncated. E.g., "Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes" is translated well in subtitles, but what is spoken is "govoreet prosto" ("speak simply"). I tried to read the subtitles instead of listen to the Russian, but came out of the theater pretty confused!

When he was 6, my younger brother got a black and white video camera for Christmas. He spent a lot of time filming a lot of rubbish black and white videos. Korol Lir is structured to begin with, but then it ends up being fairly similar to one of these black and white videos. At least my brother's videos were in English though - but then, I guess I wouldn't have stayed awake through most of this film if I didn't have to read the subtitles.Do not bother seeing this film. You can achieve an equally entertaining experience by locking yourself in a darkened room for two hours and staring at the walls. And you could do that for free!

Grigori Kozintsev must have been a man of unbridled self-confidence. Few directors have successfully met the challenge of filming "Hamlet," perhaps the most important single work in western literature; fewer still have sought to tackle the one Shakespeare play arguably superior to "Hamlet," "King Lear." Kozintsev was up to the challenge: there has probably never been a more visceral and disturbing adaptation of a Shakespeare play in any language. In contrast to the psychological approach appropriate to "Hamlet," here Kozintsev has chosen an epic portrayal of unsurpassed sweep and grandeur. Gone are any vestiges of the Elizabethan theater: here is perhaps the most compelling depiction of the Middle Ages in film history, a world of mud and filth inhabited by brutal, corrupt nobles and starving peasants. Kozintsev has in mind obvious modern parallels (the Holocaust, Vietnam) but he wisely keeps the story in a historic setting, allowing the audience to make the connection themselves. There has never been an odder-looking actor to play Lear than Juri Jarvets, who resembles nothing so much as Yoda from "Return of the Jedi," but few actors have ever portrayed the pain and loneliness of old age with such force. Oleg Dal's Fool is an eerie creation, an Auschwitz survivor adrift in fourteenth-century England; the two evil daughters are not portrayed as sexy vixens but as dirty old harridans hardened by a life spent holding and maintaining feudal power. Dmitri Shostakovich's score surpasses his score for "Hamlet." It's incredible this film could have been made in Brezhnev-era Russia, since it contains a surprising number of Christian religious images. Ironically, most of the actors in the film were Latvian or Estonian and their voices had to be dubbed by Russians, but it doesn't detract from the total experience. Of all the western films I have seen the closest match is Pasolini's "Gospel According to Saint Matthew," but while Pasolini's visual style is static and contemplative Kozintsev's is full of violent and discordant images, representing nature at the height of its fury.

Shakespeare's plays are difficult to realize on stage or on film. Reading through his plays, one gets the impression that they are greater than they can ever be performed. But there are those few productions that hit the mark and do his works justice. So it is with Korol Lir (King Lear), Grigori Kozintsev's final film.In 1964, Kozintsev's Hamlet was released and earned high praise both in Russia and the West. As a consequence, Kozintsev was invited to and attended many western film festivals including Cannes. Kozintsev cherished these trips to the west as he was able to see many films that were not shown in the Soviet Union. He was particularly eager to see the films of Kurosawa, Ford, Capra and Fellini. But it was the films of Orson Welles, Citizen Kane in particular, that made the deepest impression on him. In fact it was Citizen Kane that inspired Kozintsev to film King Lear in black-and-white rather than in color.There are so many wonderful touches in this film starting with Yuri Yarvets' harrowing portrayal of the mad Lear. His Lear always leaves me feeling crushed at the end of the film. Superb as well is the eerie, haunting performance of Galina Volchek as Regan and the outstanding cinematography of Jonas Gritsius. Of course there is also the translation used which is itself a masterpiece, by Boris Pasternak no less (the fool's songs were performed with translations by Samuil Marshak however). Dmitri Shostakovich's score is exactly what you would expect: genius. Here is no simple sonic wallpaper to play along as images move about the screen. Neither does this dark score overwhelm the on-screen action but rather acts as a wordless narrator, commenting on the drama as it unfolds. At the heart of all this is Kozintsev's bleak and powerful vision of King Lear. There are no gimmicks here, no attempts to "update", no trace of the portentousness and pomposity that mars many films based on Shakespeare. Here, the tragedy is revealed with a brutal and simple honesty. It is not only Lear and those around him who suffer but his whole nation suffers and decays alongside him. Seeing this film from first to final scene is a draining emotional experience.You probably won't find the DVD of this great film at your local video store but it is available from the Russian Cinema Council's (RUSCICO) website for about $35. Their transfer of this film is decent but it does leave a bit to be desired. One can only hope and pray that Criterion will release it one day (don't hold your breath). Still, any fan of great cinema should make the effort to acquaint themselves with this film, one that I personally consider to be one of the greatest films ever made.