Anastasia

History as bunk

ANASTASIA
Cert. U. Directed by Don Bluth & Gary Goldman

This is a cartoon, Disneyfied version of a romanticised, fictionalised, sanitised storyline (with song) which is supposed to have something to do with the Russian revolution. (I think that's about right.)
At one level it is a heart-warming tale of the princess who allegedly escaped from Lenin's massacre of the Romanov family after the 1917 coup. Here she is portrayed as being brought up in an orphanage having forgotten her true identity. With the help of a palace kitchen boy turned con-man named Dimitri, and his jolly rotund accomplice who want to use her as a fake heiress to swindle a dowager empress Grandma, they escape to Paris. There she is found to be the true Anastasia, and it all ends as she and Dimitri fall in love and live happily ever after (presumably). This is all the usual deceptive Hollywood humanist gospel of the discovery of just how wonderful you really are.
But more worrying is the way this cartoon mangles history. With overtones of a New-Age spiritual warfare idea, we are told that the revolution owes its real origins, not to Lenin, but to the evil monk, Rasputin, who sold his soul to destroy the Romanov family. The revolution involves no bloodbaths, no secret police, no death camps. In fact, in the hands of Hollywood, the whole episode looks like a jolly adventurous picnic with a few scary nightmares thrown in to add spice.
The sad fact is that it is not only communism which has to rewrite history to sustain its myths. What can we look forward to next - Muppet Killing Fields?

Anastasia

History as bunk

JEB

Dr John Benton

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