War and Peace, Part IV: Pierre Bezukhov

As Part IV begins, the Russian army is in retreat, and Moscow soon goes up in flames. Pierre is drawn fully into the conflict at last; taken prisoner, he is witness to new cruelties. Andrei and Natasha reach a kind of peace, and as war recedes and Moscow rebuilds, life and love begin again. The series concludes where it started, with the words: “If evil men are linked with one another and are thereby made strong, then honest men, too, must do likewise. It’s as simple as that.” Coming in a film made in the midst of the Cold War, this simple message is also a poignantly impossible one.