Russian Ark: The Masterworks Edition | Anna Aleksakhina, Konstantin Anisimov

Russian Ark: The Masterworks Edition | Anna Aleksakhina, Konstantin Anisimov | Russian Splendor

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Russian Ark: The M...

	Russian Ark: The Masterworks Edition Anna Aleksakhina, Konstantin Anisimov Fox Lorber, 2003 average customer review:based on 114 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Greatness does not come without effort

Other reviewers have commented ably on the fact that this film is an extraordinary tour-de-force and on the astonishing co-ordination required to make it. Instead of echoing those cries of delight I would like to add something from a slightly orthgonal perspective. In modern times we, as recipients of art, have become astonishingly lazy. We have become accustomed to our entertainment served up in bite-size pieces, easy to digest and requiring no effort on the part of the recipient. We watch movies that require no knowledge of anything, we listen to music that is banal in the extreme - the list goes on and on. Even when we listen to more serious art such as a Mozart concerto we don't really know what we are hearing and consequently much of the power of the work simply passes us by. But if we make a little effort, the results repay us a hundred-fold. In the case of Mozart, when we know that the painfully beautiful aria sung by the Queen of the Night (in Der Zauberflote) is ornamenting a libretto in which her daughter is being enticed to kill her lover we are struck by the awful contrast between beauty and horror and the power of the piece is greatly intensified. When we look at Holbein's painting The Ambassadors and we shift our viewing stance to the correct place where we can see the skewed-perspective death's head the painting takes on a deeper and darker meaning than we could otherwise have suspected.

And so it is with this tremendous movie. Unless the viewer takes just a little time and trouble to become acquainted with the broad brush strokes of Russian history, many of the scenes will be nearly meaningless and certainly will lack the power and pathos they contain. It's true that the character of the Marquis, who acts as our guide and anchor through the scenes, provides his own acerbic commentary on Russia, Russians and their history but it's an intentionally one-sided foil to the off-camera faux-naive mutterings of the film-maker himself. The "Russian soul" has been shaped by many influences and some of the most painful have arisen from (and continue to arise from) the clash between Asiatic and Western European values and attitudes to life. The setting of the Hermitage is the perfect place to explore some of these contrasts and combinations. But without some foreknowledge the viewer will simply miss many of the allusions and references and historical figures (who come and go very fleetingly indeed).

If you happen to speak a little Russian you'll find much of the dialog is surprisingly easy to understand because there's a minimum of slang and both the principle narrators (the Marquis and the film-maker) speak in a fairly "clean" version of Russian. I found that by the second time through I was following the dialog with ease.

Russia is a country that has had more than its fair share of trauma and strife, death and rebirth, hope and disappointment. The film mirrors these contrasts, being on the one hand a recitation of the horrors (Peter the Great ordering the torture and execution of his son Alexei, for example) and yet also in itself a marvelous affirmation of what Russia and Russians are capable of (who else could have conceived and executed such an intense and masterful piece of work?). If you have any interest in Russia, this movie is a must-see. And if, because you're saturated with the drivel generated by the Hollywood studios, you've ever wondered whether it's possible to make a movie that isn't predictable, formulaic and outright boring then this movie will refresh your sense of wonder and lead you to contemplate what other marvels could be created if only people would begin to walk away from the boring, trivial, and silly productions of tinsel-town.

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Russian Splendor

Russian Ark is a must see for all foreign film buffs. I absolutely adored this movie. The ballroom scenes were my favorite, along with the music and costumes. The viewer is a behind the scenes spectator along for the ride. This movie has made it to my top ten list and now I watch it at least once a year, just as if it were an old comrade.

A dazzling tour

This film would be a beauty without the tracking shot work. A mysterious docent takes us on a whirling walking tour of the Hermitage and you may find your impressions cleaved three ways: 1. The beauty of the building itself. 2. The ingenuity of the mise en scene. 3. And getting lost as a participant--the "looking for my companion" at the ball segment is brilliant. The films skeletal plot keeps the film at arm's length to some degree but, my attention never lagged.

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Beautiful and innovative, if a bit shallow

Russian Ark has been promoted as a milestone in the history of filmmaking as being the first film ever made in a single shot. Sokurov had his camera tour the Heritage in Saint Petersburg (seat of the Czars from Peter the Great to the Bolshevik revolution) to show us his take on Russian history. The camera moves from room to room and we see Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, we see the son of the Shah of Persia apologizing to the Czar for an attack on the Russian embassy in Tehran, we see a magnificent ball in 1913, and so on. It's a technical tour de force, and it's a beautiful movie to watch. Yet, there's a shallow heart in it, since there's not much to read in it except Sokurov's nostalgia for Russia's imperial past (nothing wrong there, it's his prerogative to have the political views he wishes to have). Sokurov's politically incorrect views tend to be interesting (not having been born or raised in the west, he skipped all the pc nonsense; and not having been raised on the west's popular culture, he's also a man of a very deep culture, something unusual in western directors). Unfortunately, Russian Ark is unusual in Sokurov's oeuvre in being more interested in putting the director in the upscale commercial map than in making a movie that is thought provoking.

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