Agony: The Life & Death of Rasputin on AllMovie

Produced in 1975 and banned for a decade in his native Russia, filmmaker Elem Klimov's expressionistic account of Grigory Rasputin's influence on Russia's monarch and the damning events that followed started a firestorm of controversy that would make cinema history. A nomadic Siberian Monk whose charismatic hold over Nicholas II (Anatoli Romashin) eventually resulted in his country's entry into World War I, the licentious Rasputin (Aleksei Petrenko)'s remarkable life set the stage for revolution, and changed his country forever.