Do you know what we need more of in 2022? Tragedy. Wait, no, I mean Keira Knightley in a bunch of fur. So let's break out the most recent adaption of the Tolstoy classic, Anna Karenina, and check out Keira and her Oscar-winning Imperial Russian costume design.
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ANNA KARENINA – MOVIE [Blu-ray] [2012]
Genre: Drama/Love & Romance
Format: AC-3, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen, Dolby
Anna Karenina – The Film
Holy crap, look at that summary in Wikipedia. I doubt I could have followed this at 1x speed, much less 16x. Tolstoy? I could have sworn this was written by Anton Chekhov, famous for the theatrical principle: “Witnessing a man crushed by a train in the first act must lead to suicide by train in the forty-eighth act.” Spoilers, I guess… I mentioned it was a tragedy, right?
Anna Karenina – The Furs
Meet Anna (Keira Knightley) Russian aristocrat and socialite who spends a lot of time in Act 1 on trains and a very brief amount of time in the final act under them. Fortunately, she also spends a lot of Act 1 wearing crystal fox fur.
She's chatting up Countess Vronskaya (Olivia Williams). The Countess is wearing some fox trim of her own, eerily reminiscent of the fur worn by the 1977 BBC version of Anna on the train.
Later, on a different train ride, Anna remembers her outfit includes a matching crystal fox hat. Bit disappointing this was left out before, but we get some good closeups of Keira Knightley's face haloed in fur. This is quite agreeable indeed.
Later we get a little indoor sledding. Anna wears the black fox stole we will see more of later. Sadly, the matching hat never makes it further into the film.
She is joined by Dolly (Kelly Macdonald) in a dyed fox wrap; we will see a bit more soon.
In its only appearance in the film, Anna wears a different crystal fox-trimmed outfit.
We revisit the cape in a slightly more extended sequence with better closeups.
Next, we have Kitty (Alicia Vikander) out in the countryside and agreeably overdressed for it in this fox-trimmed coat, hat, and muff combo.
This outfit gets some decent screen time. I wish the entire thing were made of fox, but that's being greedy.
Finally, rounding things out is a brief appearance by this white fox stole. She literally walks across a room and takes it off. It was rather disappointing that it wasn't around for longer, but it certainly is an excellent way to end the film.
The film technically ends with a train suicide, but you can stop watching after she takes off the white fox stole. Overall it has a solid amount and variety of fur, anchored by the lovely crystal fox trim in the first act that gets all the screen time it deserves. The rest of the furs are a little scattershot, but they're all excellent. Perhaps except for Countess Vronskaya's rather unimpressive mink. The runtime is 8%, which owes more to the film dragging on for over 2 hours. Granted, it clocks in way less than the BBC version.
Fur Runtime: approx 10.3 minutes
Film Runtime: 130 minutes
On-Screen Fur Ratio: 8%
Find-a-Fur: Anna Karenina, 2012
(all times are approximate)
- 05:40 – 07:00 – fox collars
- 18:10 – 20:25 – crystal fox collar + trim
- 32:50 – 35:10 – ”
- 37:37 – black fox hat and stole + dyed fox quick
- 38:55 – sable/black fox? trimmed cape
- 40:15 – dyed fox stole
- 46:30 – sable/black fox? cape
- 1:26:24 – mink trim
- 1:30:56 – sable/black fox? trimmed dress
- 1:31:54 – 1:34:57 – blue fox trim + hat
- 1:37:18 – 1:42:00 – sable/black fox? trimmed dress to black fox stole
- 1:42:55 – white fox stole
- 1:46:30 – ”