Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Brilliant and touching

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Eisenstein's use of light, shadow and poses to create what was essentially a moving frieze was converted to the Opera Stage in the 1970s by the Metropolitan Opera who scheduled "Boris" with Jerome Hines who had studied Eisenstein intently. The effect was stunning visually as well as vocally. It remains one of the best Met presentations as a whole (visuals, dance, music acting and singing) I have ever seen. I have one friend who called it at the time the closest thing she had seen to a great drama on the Opera stage. Usually that almost precludes great singing, but that was not true in this case.Thought you might have an interest. All performance eventually ties together. Somehow.

The second in what should have been a trilogy, Ivan the Terrible Part 2 follows on from Part I not only in story but in style. Eisenstein approached the Ivan the Terrible films from a traditional theatrical angle appropriate to the subject matter. As others have commented, this was his equivalent of a Shakespeare adaptation.If anything, Part 2 is even more baroque and stylised than its predecessor. The opening scene – the defection of Kurbsky - is Eisenstein at his most operatic, with exaggerated acting that flows along with Prokofiev's score. But it's totally cinematic too, with spot on editing between facial close-ups, giving us an impression of the allegiances and hidden thoughts at play here. Eisenstein never really stopped thinking like a director of silents, and although the Ivan films are quite wordy they can be read and understood purely as visuals.The first scene is also the lightest and happiest, which seems unusual – after all it's a scene in which Ivan's best friend is betraying him and going over to join his enemy – but in the context of the whole picture perhaps it's not that strange. While Ivan the Terrible Part 1 was a great study of the power of a charismatic individual, part 2 focuses more on the loneliness and insecurity of a powerful figure. The majority of part 2 is incredibly dark and eerie, full of disturbing imagery. Ivan is ageing, he's widowed and he trusts no-one. Eisenstein still makes him vaguely sympathetic, but more as a tragic figure than a conquering hero. So it makes sense for Kurbsky's betrayal to be so bright and jaunty – this is the world Ivan has lost. Of course, it's fairly likely that Eisenstein was himself feeling stifled by the Soviet regime, and perhaps the subtext here is that he secretly longed to do a Kurbsky himself! Part 2 includes a short colour sequence in the film's climax. This serves to show off a hypnotic dance routine, a magnificent set piece which forms a backdrop to Ivan's final act of retribution against his enemies. The picture quality is terrible here (No Technicolor in the USSR!), even worse than early two-strip Technicolor. It's very fuzzy, and only the blues and reds show up boldly. Eisenstein takes this on board however, and uses red and blue to create a "hot" and "cold" look respectively, using the two colours as he used light and dark in monochrome.Although they are very similar, I prefer part 2 somewhat to part 1. Whereas part 1 was more a collection of episodes, part 2 is a more complete, singular story. As a little side point, Ivan the Terrible part 2 should perhaps be classed as a musical. There are several musical numbers, two are in the context of the film, but the other is a genuine case of a character bursting into song, like a medieval Russian Julie Andrews. And why not? The musical is a cousin of the opera, and the border between opera and cinema is incredibly close in this picture.Sadly, this picture was banned by the soviet state and part 3 (which was already in production) was axed. Purportedly this was because the highlighting of Ivan's iron rule and his use of spies and secret police was thought to be an attack on Stalin's government, although I think the real reason might have been more personal. Stalin looked upon Ivan as a role model, and may have taken offence at the portrayal of the Tsar as a paranoid, decrepit old man (Like Disney, Eisenstein often drew upon animal characteristics; some have compared the middle-aged Ivan to Disney's Big Bad Wolf, although I've always thought of him as looking more like a vulture). Whatever the case, we are on the one hand very lucky that Eisenstein's swansong has survived intact, yet on the other hand unlucky that the concluding part of the trilogy never saw the light of day, as it would surely have been another classic.

Part 2 followed on from Part 1 without a gap – the 2 put together would make one colossal movie. The only trouble being that the last 90 minutes or so would still be missing (Part 3). This has a 16 minute colour sequence near the end plus the last 2 minutes that added a new dimension to the story, and although the spotlighting was a bit ropey it all worked well with the usual fantastic camera angles and ugly brooding people.Ivan vacillates between doing it his way and relying on Mother Church for help. Either way the plotting aristocratic boyars have to be sorted out for once and for all, this he sets out to accomplish with the help of the Men Apart – his NKVD. In reality Ivan was going mad at this period, the similarities to Stalin still resound. Eisenstein pulled his punches but must have known Part 2 would end up in trouble, which it did – it wasn't released from the metaphorical gulag until 1958, and Part 3 was aborted. Intensely absorbing and startlingly melodramatic by turns it still hasn't got the same energy as Part 1, but that only makes it a lesser classic. Again, it resembles a sedate silent film with sound (with a bit of red this time), the simple tale powerfully told by a master propagandist using sledgehammer symbolism at every turn. Intelligent film-making is hardly the phrase to use – a previous post compared Eisenstein correctly to Kurosawa – very different styles but with the same results.Wonderful sequel, much better to be watched on the heels of Part 1. At least the people who didn't like that won't watch this and comment adversely on it, right?

Ivan Grosnyy, Part II is the movie of my life; the Part I is also a very good film. It is the masterpiece of Sergei Eisenstein. Unfortunately we can never see the Part III of this meant to be trilogy. The performances (especially Nikolai Cherkasov), the photography, the wardrobe, the scenarios and the shots are the most beautiful I have ever seen in the history of film-making. However, it is necessary to watch the Part I first to understand the history. I suggest to all the people who like this genre of film to see another very good film of Sergey Eisenstein: Alexander Nevsky once again with Nikolai Cherkasov in the main role. I recommend to all the people who want to see these movies to by the Criterion DVD box set, which contains also first part and, Alexander Nevsky. Don't die without seeing these masterpieces.