From Shakespeare's "Richard III" onwards, the end of the monarch is his own fault. People who are deceived by power must also be deceived by power. The tragedy of the Russian emperor is roughly the same. Under the so-called "tough" tradition, they blindly showed off their martial arts to the outside world and put pressure on the inside, but they didn't know that due to the backwardness of Russia's economy at that time, there were not enough bullets at the critical moment, and there was no capital at all to be a "tough guy". And those who are in power all love adjectives such as brilliant, gorgeous, splendid, and great. This is especially true of Russia as a so-called "Eurasian power". However, the reality is not chicken blood, you can fight if you want. Losing the Russo-Japanese War to a small island country is already a sign of decline, and then running to participate in World War I to fight against an industrial power is simply self-defeating. The Russian emperor finally made a fatal decision, which led to the death of the dynasty. I can't help but say that the arrangement of the film is still very precise when returning to the palace after abdication: the place where the robes were dressed in fine clothes in the past is now empty; the black slaves guarding the gate of the inner palace have also become the guards of the new government. The tsar, who is no longer a king, entered the palace, and Fang collapsed and cried, but he did not embrace the queen—a person born to be a king, was buried in the blood for three hundred years. ? But such a big responsibility, obviously only oneself can do it, how can it be pushed to outsiders?
Out of the need to create drama, the script chose a most sensational perspective, starting with the birth of Prince Alexey, and the end of the tsar basically paralleled the life of the little prince. Such a screenwriter is nothing more than to gain the sympathy of the audience: it seems that the fault of the tsar is all due to his concern for his son. Because Alexei suffered from hemophilia, the tsars were so anxious that they had no intention of doing anything else. Taking advantage of the situation, Rasputin's victory is also counted in the account of asking God for the children (this is proved by historical facts). But that doesn't explain the tsar's distaste for the Duma at all. The ministers persuaded him several times to follow the example of Britain and Germany and hand over power to the parliament, but they were all rejected. It can be seen that the stubbornness of autocracy has long been ingrained in the Tsar's heart. There are Russian cultural reasons for this, as well as the tsar's personal feelings: he always felt that the meaning of the king's existence lies in the needs of his subjects. The idea of "the king is the father of the people" is a typical Russian political tradition. As the "big head" of the country, the tsar was more able to promise stability and well-being to his people, rather than the noise of parliament. Even if the reality has proved that this kind of patriarchy has seriously dragged down the country, he still refuses to face it. It is a pity that history has given the opportunity to delay it? Those who do not go with it will prosper, and those who go against it will perish.
Objectively speaking, Nicholas II was not a tyrant, he just made too many tricks. It's also the dead end of monarchy: to be king by your birth, not your ability. Governing a country is not everyone's skill. Sometimes too much thinking about "achievement" can be counterproductive. As for the "revolutionary leaders" in this film, it is simply a "surprise" - none of them "like that", but their respective characteristics are infinitely magnified, making people recognizable at a glance: Lenin's The action of grabbing the vest is obsessive-compulsive. Stalin's logo is on the temples, and it is obviously not Trotsky who does not keep a goatee and does not quarrel with Lenin. . . The only one that is fairly close to the prototype is Kerensky. Perhaps as the position of the United States, it can neither support the monarchy nor praise the Communist Party, so it can only make this short-lived "democratic government" prime minister a positive figure. His downfall has also been described as tragic - the decision to continue fighting "in order to preserve the glory of Russia" (it would be more credible to say that he was for the 3 billion rubles that I don't know if there was). However, to say that his attitude towards the Tsar's family is more civilized is not to glorify him. The committee members wearing red hoops, at best, hesitated for a night and then settled the matter.
This is the central knot of the story: is there any need for this kind of "physical annihilation"? The tone of the previous plot was chaotic and sympathetic for a while, and condemned for a while, just because I didn't know how to set the audience's emotions. Of course, the director's expectations were just right: the tsar was wrong, but the disposal of the family was indeed too cruel and ruthless. However, it is very difficult to completely let the image complete this task. After all, there are women and children among the final victims. In fact, no matter how they are guided, there will always be people who insist on rationality and affirm that "revolutionary violence" is necessary. What's more, the film has already arranged the background of someone wanting to rescue the tsar at that time for the sake of "balance of position". But I believe that most people will still think of the consequences of this "elimination logic" operation: the new system quickly became addicted to "elimination", and constantly applied it to new "enemies" and even their own people. . Thus, the leaders of the Tsarist era who had been sentenced to four years of exile for ideological "heretics" began to impose sentences of ten to twenty-five years for what they considered "heretics" (see Solzhenitsyn's "First Circle"). And while the ruthlessness index doubled, the tyranny did not lose weight - the people finally had their new "father".
This is the nightmare of this country: the reincarnation of the "father", the rebirth of the parent. In the dark, it is impossible to change this complex emotion for the "strong" between masochistic love and lazy dependence. The guilt of killing one's father is hard to get rid of. The end of the tsar is only a small episode of it. Unfortunately, the version told by the Americans does not show the real reflection and feelings of the Russians. A better explanation may have to wait for the full revival of Russian cinema.
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