Agony

Agony (; U.S. theatrical/DVD title Rasputin) is a 1981 Soviet biographical film by Elem Klimov, made c.1973-75 and released in Western and Central Europe in 1982 (United States and Soviet Union 1985), after protracted resistance from Soviet authorities. The film is notable for its rich, sometimes baroque style, its sumptuous recreation of episodes from the final year of Imperial Russia and the psychological portraits of Grigori Rasputin and the Imperial family. Plot The storyline follows the final months of 1916 up to the murder of Rasputin; some events have been telescoped into this time though they actually happened earlier, during the war. Rasputin's effect on people around him is shown as almost hypnotic, and the film avoids taking a moral stance towards him—breaking not only with Soviet history but also with how he was regarded by people near the court at the time, some of whom regarded him as a debilitating figure who disgraced the monarchy and hampered the war effort. Cast Aleksei Petrenko as Grigori Rasputin Anatoli Romashin as emperor Nicholas II Velta Līne as empress Alexandra Feodorovna Alisa Freindlich as Anna Vyrubova Aleksandr Romantsov as Felix Yusupov Yuri Katin-Yartsev as Vladimir Purishkevich Leonid Bronevoy as Ivan Manasevich-Manuilov Pavel Pankov as Manus Mickhail Danilov as Mikhail M. Andronikov Mikhail Svetin as Terekhov Boris Romanov as Balashov Lyudmila Polyakova as Praskovya Fyodorovna, Rasputin's wife Afanasi Trishkin as Maklakov Release The film went unshown until 1981, when it was screened at the Moscow Film Festival and attracted very favourable reviews. Released in Western Europe, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland in 1982, it was hailed as one of the most original Soviet films of the 1970s. It was screened later in 1985, at the dawn of the Glasnost era.