“This is one of those humble films, totally given over to serving the books of which they are the translation in images. But Garas’ film is also an intelligent film, capable of grasping the profound themes and anxieties of the original text. Thus the insistence on all those scenes in stations, on the arrivals and departures of trains is explained as flash-forwards to the heroine’s destiny. Thus Irene Varsanyi’s dry and sincere interpretation or the sober staging which never rises to excess and perfectly reproduces that sense of desolate resignation which emerges from the folds of the book. With an admirable sense of synthesis, all the scenes which are most representative of the novel are already contemplated in this film – dominated as it is by a tragic eroticism magnificently summarised in the Brechtian caress with which Anna touches the face of a cynical and absorbed Vronsky. The ending is also remarkable, truncated on the reverse angle of the train which sweeps away the heroine. An out and out subjective on darkness and death: everyone knows what must happen to the woman and there is no need to tell it. The solution adopted is that of pure expressiveness”.

(Giacomo Manzoli)