In 1916, Captain Alexander Kolchak's ship is laying naval mines in the Baltic Sea when they are blocked by SMS Friedrich Carl of the Imperial German Navy. Kolchak leads his men in Russian Orthodox prayers for protection as they lure the German ship towards their mines and it sinks. At the naval base in the Grand Duchy of Finland, Kolchak is promoted to rear admiral and introduced to Anna Timiryova, the wife of subordinate officer and close friend Captain Sergei Timirev. Although Sergei reminds his wife, that they took vows before God, Anna is unmoved and wants nothing more than to be with the Admiral. Terrified of losing Kolchak, his wife Sofya offers to leave for Petrograd, but Kolchak is adamant about their marriage. When Anna delivers a letter to Kolchak he informs her that they can never meet, professing his love for her.
Tsar Nicholas II personally promotes Kolchak to vice admiral and commander of the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol. After the February Revolution in 1917, Tsarist officers are disarmed and executed at the Kronstadt naval base. Sergei barely escapes with Anna. A group of enlisted men arrive aboard Kolchak's flotilla demanding all officers surrender their arms. Kolchak orders his subordinates to obey and throws his own sword into the harbour.
Kolchak is summoned by Alexander Kerensky and offered the position of Minister of Defense. Kolchak accepts on the condition they restore old Imperial Army practices. Kerensky refuses and offers him exile in the United States, ostensibly because the Allies need him as an expert to take Constantinople by naval attack. Shortly after, his wife and son are rescued from their home in Crimea and whisked away to a British ship, just before the house is attacked by Red Guards.
In 1918, Anna and Sergei are travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway when she learns Kolchak is setting up an anti-Bolshevik army in Omsk. Sergei is dismayed when Anna announces that she is leaving him and becomes a nurse in the Russian Civil War. Kolchak learns the Red Army is advancing on Omsk, he orders an evacuation and seizes Irkutsk as the new capital of anti-communist Russia.
Anna is recognized by a White officer who informs Kolchak; they meet and he vows never to leave her again, explaining he has asked Sofya for divorce. He proposes to Anna, but she insists that there is no need for marriage. Eventually, she relents and they are seen attending the Divine Liturgy together.
Meanwhile, Irkutsk is under the nominal control of French General Maurice Janin and the Czechoslovak Legion. With their defenses disintegrating, the Red Army offers a way out alive. As a result, General Janin agrees to hand over Kolchak. Kolchak and Anna are arrested by the Czechs and handed over to the Reds. Reinforcements, led by Kolchak's ally General Vladimir Kappel, eventually reach Irkutsk just in time to rescue Kolchak; however the offensive fails. Kolchak is put on trial by the Irkutsk soviet and executed with his former Prime Minister along the banks of the frozen Angara River. His last words are, "Send word to my wife in Paris that I bless our son". Their bodies are dumped into an opening in the ice, hewn up by the local Orthodox clergy for the Great Blessing of Waters on Theophany.
The story then returns to 1964 at Mosfilm. It is revealed that Anna is the noblewoman who appears as an extra in War and Peace. As she witnesses a rehearsal for one of the film's ballroom scenes, she recalls her first meeting with Kolchak, and her dreams of the formal dance she was never able to share with her beloved.
Epilogue
Anna was arrested numerous times following Kolchak's execution and survived nearly 40 years in the Gulag before her release in 1960. She died in Moscow in January 1975, aged 81.
Sergei became a rear admiral commanding the White Russian Navy in Siberia before fleeing to China, where he captained Chinese steamers. He settled in Shanghai's White Russian community, where he died in 1932.
Sophya Kolchak joined her son in exile in Paris. She died in the Longjumeau Hospital in 1956.
According to director Andrei Kravchuk, "[The film is] about a man who tries to create history, to take an active part in history, as he gets caught in the turmoil. However, he keeps on struggling, he preserves his honour and his dignity, and he continues to love."[5]
Actress Elizaveta Boyarskaya said of her character, "She was a woman of such force, of such will, with such magnanimity... I feel an amazing resemblance to her... When I read script, I was even a bit scared: because she has the same vision of history as me. All that can arrive at is me. And when I played Anna, I did not play, I was her. It is my epoch, my attitude regarding love."[This quote needs a citation]
After being asked about the film Doctor Zhivago, she stated, "The only thing that these two films share consists in the love which the Russian women can carry; it is a topic approached by many novels. They love up to the last drop of blood, till the most dreadful end, to the death; they are capable of leaving family and children for the love of the man which they have chosen."[This quote needs a citation]
Production
The film had 210 shooting days. Work on the picture took four years. Principal photography lasted for a year-and-half with a two to three-month break.[6] Locations included Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sevastopol, Torzhok and Irkutsk.[7] The twelve-minute battle scene took a month to shoot.[7] Twenty-four thousand CGI shots were incorporated into the film.[7] Khabensky had to wear an orthopedic corset due to poor posture.[8]
Release and reception
The first screening of the film took place on October 9, 2008.[9] Reception of the movie by Russian critics was mixed.[10]
Because Kolchak had been portrayed as a villain in Soviet historiography, the film encountered some controversy in Russia due to its reversal of roles. In the United States, Leslie Felperin of Variety wrote: "Strictly as a film, however, Admiral is entertaining enough in a retro Doctor Zhivago/War and Peace sort of way, with its big setpieces, lavish costumes and string-laden orchestral score. For all intents and purposes, pic reps a virtual mirror image of those old patriotic Soviet-era movies wherein the Reds were the heroes and the White Army the baddies."[11]
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