Plot: Eight-hour epic based on the book of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. Two main story-lines are complex and intertwined. One is the love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov, who is unhappy in his marriage. Another is the "Great Patriotic War" of 1812 against the invading Napoleon's Armies. The people of Russia from all classes of society stand up united against the enemy. The 500,000 strong Napoleon's army moves through Russia and causes much destruction, culminating in the battle of Borodino. The Russian army has to retreat. Moscow is occupied, looted and burned down, but soon Napoleon loses control and has to flee. Both sides suffer tremendous losses in the war, and Russian society is left irrevocably changed.
Alternative Plot: Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk's retelling of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel of Napoleon's invasion of Russia is widely considered one of the longest and most expensive films of all time. Like the novel, the film is broken into four sections telling two intertwining stories, that of the war itself (featuring some of the most elaborate battles ever filmed) and that of the romance of Russian aristocrats Count Pierre Bezukhov (Sergei Bondarchuk) and Countess Natasha Rostova (Lyudmila Saveleva).
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