Rasputin

Rasputin is set at the Russian court from just around the turn of the century up to the execution of the Tsar's family. The narrator is the small, sickly crown prince Alexei, but the protagonist is the monk Rasputin, who enjoys great favour with the Tsar and especially the Tsarina after he has several times miraculously stopped the haemophiliac Alexei's bleeding. Rasputin is allegedly blessed by the Virgin Mary, something the church's clergy also become convinced of.

Hatred, mistrust and envy soon make the powerful Rasputin unpopular, however, both among the nobility, who regard him as a wretched upstart, and among the revolutionaries, who have little time for the Tsar's family in the first place. It is the nobles, though, who kill Rasputin, which is unfortunate, for Rasputin has prophesied that if members of the Tsar's family wield the knife, none of them will live very long. This prophecy comes true.

Rasputin is a rather unpleasant historical drama, not least because the narrator is a murdered, innocent little boy, and one comes to feel a certain sympathy for the Tsar's family. Alan Rickman, however, is far too emotional and melodramatic as the mysterious Rasputin. So is the film, but without tugging at the heartstrings. I find it hard to make out what story Uli Edel actually wanted to tell.