Agony: The Life and Death of Rasputin - Part I (Film 1981)

Agony is a 1981 Soviet biographical film by Elem Klimov. Audio in Russian with English subtitles.

Made c.1973-75 and released in Western and Central Europe in 1982, 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 Grigorij Rasputin and the Imperial family.

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 & Characters:
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