Anna Karenina 2012 review

I earlier thought that I would rustle up the rough notes to write a more coherent piece. But, that is too much work. So, unloading my rough jottings, as is, on the world.

• I read Anna Karenina in college. I loved it. I loved it so much that once I narrated it to a room full of bhaang-drunk-friends in 3rd year Holi celebration at my undergraduate hostel. And they listened with rapt attention for half an hour!! (maybe under the influence of bhaang).
• Keira Knightley is stunning as Anna Karenina. I could go on looking at her face in the movie even if all music and dialogues are silenced out.
• Levin is so innocent, so wholesome. That Bill Weasley could look like this was beyond me.
• Karenin is absolutely respectable in the movie. Why should he not? After all, he is a Dumbledore. I did not like Karenin that much when I read the book in my college days. Maybe the director made him great. Maybe the super kind Karenin was the handiwork of Tolstoy himself and I could not realize it in my college years. Maybe the young me wanted to have some sort of villain in a novel. 
• The last scene of Seryozha (son from Anna and Karenin) searching for and hugging Anya (daughter from Anna and Vronsky) teared me up. Maybe it is the best 'happy' ending I could think of. I don't remember whether the book had that angle. It is already one hour past I finished the movie (while writing this) and it is still tearing me up.
• I am a person who runs away from sad endings or sad parts in a movie/novel. But there is something immensely attractive about the sadness in Anna Karenina - the 2012 movie.
• I always wanted to love Russia. I still do - Tolstoy's Russia!! And this movie delivers my beloved Russia in spades.
• The snow, the ballroom music, the stunningly good-looking people, the countryside just like I visualized while reading Tolstoy, the army mannerisms, the horse race, the lovable motherly Agafia Mikhailovna, the scythe scene in the fields... The director knew better than me how I wanted to visualize the novel. The director knew me better than myself!
• Though not explicitly shown, the sensuality of Anna and Vronsky making out, or lying seminude on white sheets, is out of the charts. A work of art, I must say.
• Even though Anna Karenina is viciously injuring Karenin, you wish happiness for both of them. You keep thinking of how Anna could have ended up happier. I wished Anna to feel the same happiness and peace as Levin did.
• I could not find a single character as pure villain or evil. Everyone is human and I felt for all of them.
• The dream-like stage/movie creation is superb. I saw in reviews that some critics did not like this 'fancy' adaptation. But it worked beautifully for me.