Have you heard there’s a rumour in Anastasia?

By Amílcar Ferrero

Some weeks ago, my little nephew, me, and nothing to do. After a long debate (she was victorious), we ended up watching the film Anastasia. From the very beginning I couldn’t believe my eyes. The film is not much more than any princesses’ movie: a beautiful princess, a love story, an evil enemy, a happy ending, and a positive reception. But there is something in it that preoccupied me. Sadly, my nephew’s cry didn’t let me turn off the TV.

The peculiarity of this animated musical film, directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman and released in 1997, resides in the use of historical places, events and characters. It is set in imperial Russia in 1916 and the story focuses on the consequences of the Russian revolution for the royal family at that time. The bad thing is that Anastasia transmits a misleading view of history by distorting, manipulating and altering it.

Who was Anastasia? Talking about the real person, she was Tsar Nicholas II’s daughter, and she was killed in 1918 with all his family because of the outbreak of the Russian revolution. The film takes Anastasia as the main character but it makes her survive the revolution and builds a complete new life for her. While it is true that still in 1997 there was a rumour that stated that Anastasia had survived the revolution because her corpse hadn’t been discovered yet, I don’t think this rumour can give the film the power of using her name and changing her history.

Every princesses’ movie has an evil witch. In this case the scriptwriters decided to make Rasputin their “evil witch”. Rasputin, the real one, was a mystic and faith healer, and the adviser of the royal family in Russia. The film, however, shows Rasputin as the most dishonourable enemy of Nicholas II and his family; and, also, as a wizard with dark powers that helps to impulse the Russian revolution and destroy the monarchy. Let me tell the scriptwriters, in case they don’t know, that the real Rasputin had been killed two years before the Russian revolution, and that while he was alive he had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks (the people who actually carried out the revolution). About the dark powers, I leave it to your own judgment.

After the revolution the film jumps ten years later and shows life in St. Petersburg, the Russian capital at those years. By singing a song, the working class people show how grey, gloomy and bleak their lives are since the revolution. “Have you heard there's a rumour in St. Petersburg? Although the Czar did not survive, one daughter may be still alive!” goes the song. A rumour about Anastasia being alive gives the working class a hope to return to monarchy. Probably the food shortages, autocracy, misery and brutal suppression during tsarist Russia made the life of the lower class happy and colourful. I don’t want to discuss to what extent these things changed after the revolution, but showing a feeling of excitement among the common people because of the supposed return of Anastasia is an act of distorting history.

The positive reception the film received provoked on me some kind of indignation.  While it is true that the film uses history only as a starting point, that doesn’t give the scriptwriters the right to manipulate it. I might ask what the intention is behind this manipulation, if any. Dealing with history is something to be considered seriously. We should not let any film take history and mess it up.