If you are not remotely familiar with the films of Ken Russell, this movie is an excellent work with which to dive into the pool of surreal phantasmagoria this director always creates. His movies at times tend to be incoherent in spots, because he is going much more for visceral and WAYYYY over the top effect rather than linear plot consistency -- and this story of the legendary Russian Composer Tchiakovsky provides excellent fodder for his style.

However, if you are looking for anything approaching a realistic appraisal/bio of Tchiakovsky's life, you sure as heck need to look elsewhere ! To say that Mr. Russell takes a bit of poetic and dramatic license to this story is like saying Jim Cameron took a little bit of his imagination to say what happened on the Titanic.

Tchiakovsky is a manically tortured soul portrayed by Richard Chamberlain. His at times internally combustive, at times outwardly scenery crunching performance is a good microcosm of the whole movie in it's description-- at times it's hilariously campy, at times it's harrowing, at times it's downright awe-inspiring. Poor Peter T. is tortured by two main things, one is his undeniable homosexuality that he alternately fights and embraces , the other his the horrific reminders of his poor mother's death and final illness when a bunch of loony doctors were trying to find new ways to treat cholera. ( I Won't spoil WHAT They do to PT's poor Mom but it sure as heck is harrowing to watch in the flashback !!)

As these things set up the very realistic point that Mr. PT is always just a few players short of an orchestra in terms of his mental state-- more of the torture of the life around him continues to weigh upon his sanity. He denies his love ( or at least his lust ) for Count Anton Chiluvsky ( played with fun fey camp by Christopher Gable) by marrying Nina played by Glenda Jackson. While the count is an important character in this story he sometimes veers what seriousness there is in this movie totally off course when he is on screen because, in another example of this movie's garish and often silly make-up, he looks pretty much like what John Schneider looked like on The Dukes of Hazzard with a handlebar moustache added.

Now in real life , PT's marriage to Nina was very very short, she realized she couldn't " change" him and they parted ways and that was that. But Mr. Russell takes a whole cr&pload of dramatic license again by making their psychotic marriage the whole centerpiece of most of the movie's narrative. It becomes hideously obvious that she can't just be a pleasant " beard" ( using in a pun the slang term for a gay guy's wife, and also playing on the fact that the beard they give RC in the make-up room for this movie seems to have a life of it's own and resembles something you might kill for a pelt.) -- she wants a REAL marriage. Yet, PT is portrayed as not even just a little but bi, she actually DISGUSTS him. So as their demented union progresses.. Nina gets more and more looney-- Tchiakovsky throws more and more fits, at one time even choking her and blaming her oppressive presence for the fact that he can't write anymore. His climactic howl in this scene of " BECAUSE OF YOU , THERE IS NOTHING LEFT IN ME" is another fantastic example that represents what this whole movie is at once. This scene is at once campily stupid, harrowingly emotional, and shockingly gripping.

Other aspects of PT's life play out among this constant arena of dementia-- PT had a very famous patroness by the last name of Von Meck portrayed here by Izabella Telezynska. In another of those huge leaps of poetic license, in real life Ms. Von Meck kept PT in cash and gave him the ability to compose without financial worry , wrote him pleasant letters, and insisted they had no real life contact. However in this movie she for some reason is portrayed as being torturedly in love with , jealous of his wife, and even at one time invites him to live on a secluded corner of her estate where she watches him from afar Again the fact that she is 40 some years his senior and that she has two really creepy twin sons who fulfill no purpose it seems except to have more creepy people in the movie makes this partially true story from PT's life all the more campy.

Nina is finally gotten rid of in another not-real-life way -- sent to somewhere that provides MORE reason for Mr. Russell to flood the screen with screaming nutsoness ( I won't spoilt exactly what happens to her in the script, but I bet you can figure it out. ) -- and then Mr. T's life progresses pretty much the same way .. with gay dalliances that torture him, with some music that is a success and some that is trashed, and then in actually a VERY well written sequence the did he/didn't he indirect suicide of Tchiakovsky drinking unboiled water in a time of a cholera epidemic is portrayed rather ambiguously-- perhaps the most realistic thing in the film since this act indeed always in question when analyzing PT's behavior at the end of his life.

But to communicate in this review what you are going to SEE-- it's necessary to point out 3 of the wacko set pieces that really get across that Ken Russell is not your conventional filmmaker.

-- Again.. in a sequence that is alternately painful and inducing of head-shaking guffaws over the silliness of it-- there is a waking dream sequence were PT, Nina, some swans and Count the Boyfriend all sort of saunter/dance/frolic through the forest in strange angles while parts of the Swan Lake music plays. It's good for trying to get across the point of PT's torn-ness, but the whole thing is just so weird it serves more to demonstrate that this is a part where Ken Russell is indeed being himself.

-- In another more horrifying than laughable sequence -- Nina and Peter are traveling on a train. Now everyone in this movie either HAS a fever, is getting one, is getting over one, or is sweating so much under the garganutanly garish make up that that they SEEM to have one. So Nina in these enclosed quarters of the train compartment decides she WILL get PT to trek to the sexual other side.. and she sets out to slowly tear off her piles of sweaty clothes, try to tear off Peter's , then basically try to seduce/rape him. This may not sound ALL that bizarre in description but trust me it is. The shaky lighting, the effective blast of parts of the composer's 5th symphony as this goes on, the progressively more wacko looks on Nina and PT's face-- and then the anvil that hits the surrealness of this scene on your head with it's madness---- when I said it goes on and on-- I meant it !!-- THIS SCENE IS ALMOST SEVEN MINUTES LONG.

-- Once Tchiakovsky is convinced by his brother and agent folks to go and try to conquer America, which he does with great success -- there is a sequence that just has to be seen to be believed. In an extended (at LEAST 12 minute ) set of visions towards the end of the film feature PT dancing on top of a pedestal in a parade while trains pass by with 1812 written on them as parts of the 1812 overture play. ( LOUDLY) Then there are upside down clowns, little girls with 4th of July sparklers , people with green faces and God Knows What else all following PT around and cheering him on. Like I said you have to see this to believe it.

Finally in a film about a composer one has to cite the use of said music and for this film, the usage is absolutely phenomenal. So many of Tchiakovsky's tortruedly beautiful melodies and turbulent fast passages from the first movements of his symphonies are used to incredible dramatic effect. The music applications alone in this movie deserve as much attention as Mr. Russell's suitably creative, if constantly bizarre directing. Also I always approve wholeheartedly as professional musician myself when the playing is either faked well or not faked at all. In a sequence towards the beginning at the failed premiere of now probably Tchiakovsky's most famous piece to the masses other than 1812, the First Piano Concerto , RC's piano playing and/or mimicking of piano playing is wonderfully impressive.

To conclude, again if you would like a way into Mr. Russell's funhouse of work , this is an entertaining way in it. If you are in the mood to see an elegant, classy masterpiece of a composer's story , you need to see what is still my favorite movie of all time, Amadeus. But if you'd like a bad acid trip of alternate hilarity and horror through the life and mind of one of the most screwed-up figures in all of music history-- then this movie fits the bill better than anything in the music-pic genre !!

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age