Doctor Zhivago

Romance

You can’t make it too easy. There must be a bad marriage, a missing brother, jealousy, misuse of privilege, various traumas, and a revolution and counterrevolution in which nobody is safe.

Twisted relationships

War does twists everything. It creates orphans, separates couples, murders, and excuses rapes. People, meanwhile, try to cope, while they find and lose loved ones, nieces, and friends.

Secret service

It wasn’t a secret. It openly suppressed political opposition using abduction, torture, and murder, and it wasn’t accountable to the law.