Arca Russa

"Russian Ark" is an extraordinary docu-drama approach to bringing architectural history alive. It brings the "living history" approach of "Colonial Williamsburg" etc. to cinema.

It would have been enough that the director got extensive access to the Hermitage Museum in Petersburg to show it to us.

It would have been enough to have authentic costumes, choreography, and make-up for several centuries of Russian history. (I was reminded that my husband's grandmother was a young seamstress for rich folks like these, making this extravagant lifestyle possible.)

It would have been enough to have literally a cast of thousands because how else can one really know how those fantastic ballrooms and grand staircases were meant to be used and seen without a full orchestra and gowned and uniformed participants as far as the camera can see?

It would have been enough to come up with a cute gimmick of a time-traveling two-some to glide us through the rooms of the Hermitage to show the tsars, aristocrats, curators, and ordinary Russian tourists who have passed through over the years, with humorous commentary on Russia's changing relationship with Europe over these centuries as shown through the art and architecture of the building while wars and revolutions loomed outside.

But then, it would have been enough that it's all done in a single take over just an hour and a half with luscious cinematography.

There was a slow line to get in the theater so I missed the opening historical background, and I've learned most of my Russian (let alone European) history from novels and movies so I did get a bit lost here and there wandering the corridors of history, but the unseen narrator posits that this is all a dreamscape anyway.

I made a point of seeing this because a fellow cinephile who I frequently bump into at my local arthouse had directly called the distributor asking when it would be playing elsewhere and was told they can't afford to make more prints available so one can only see it at the Manhattan theaters -- so make a point to see it on a movie screen and not just wait for when the History Channel shows a reduced version.

I found "Russian Ark" a fascinating work of a very ambitious director. For me, it was a highly enjoyable guided tour through the rooms, galleries, and halls of one of the greatest museums in the world. I have not been to Hermitage (Winter Palace) for over fourteen years, and to see the familiar rooms, stairs, paintings, and sculptures was like traveling back in time. The film is also the journey over three hundred years of the Russian history and the attempt to understand the country's place and meaning in European culture. Each of the palace's rooms is filled with memories, shadows, whispers, smiles, and tears of the people whose lives have made the history of the country. The fact that it is all presented in a single, the longest uninterrupted shot ever makes it even more incredible. I also saw the documentary about making "Russian Ark". It is called "On One Breath" - that's how the director, Alexander Sokurov wanted his audience to feel about the film that was shot in a single glorious take during several hours on one winter night. The preparation for this unforgettable night took almost four years.

This documentary-type movie, done all in one long, unbroken take with a steadicam, has the camera basically hovering around a famous Russian museum for an hour and-a-half as the unseen film director (both by us and the others in the museum) makes comments, as if in a dream, and converses with a French, former diplomat from the 1800s. It's a mix of a museum tour, Russian history, and performance art -- Catherine the Great appears at one point, desperately looking for the toilet. I liked it because it's about the closest thing to a dreamstate you can get in film, something like the long tracking shots in Tarkovsky's movies; I didn't get a lot of the references to Russian historical figures, but it doesn't really matter. However, if you know Russian history, you may get extra enjoyment out of it and might latch onto the sarcastic bits better than I did. I think this is a real achievement; a perfect example of how style is substance. 9/10

Focusing on three centuries of Russian history from Peter the Great to Tsar Nicholas II, Russian Ark, the latest film by Alexander Sokurov, is an amazing tour de force. Shot in one long 96-minute tracking shot with a cast of 2000 actors and extras, the film takes the viewer into the great Hermitage Collection in St. Petersburg, Russia, showing real works of art from 33 rooms and exploring their meaning in a larger context. More than just a great technical achievement, this is also a sublime meditation on the individual's place in the universe, one that does not recreate history but allows us to revisit it on a dreamlike stage where past, present, and future are one.

The film begins in the dark with the narrator (apparently Sokurov) commenting about how little he sees. "My eyes are open", he says, "and yet I see nothing". He does not know where he is but apparently has just died in an accident of some kind. Is this a movie? A play?" he asks. He receives no answer except a vision of 18th century aristocrats moving slowly into the Tsar's palace. An elegant white-haired man in a black cloak (Sergey Dreiden) suddenly appears and escorts the confused narrator into the corridors of the grand palace. "Everyone knows the present, but who can remember the past", says the stranger as they walk from one ballroom to the next, witnessing great works of art as well as ghost-like presences from Russia's past. We see works by El Greco, Rubens and Van Dyck in their awesome splendor. We run into Peter the Great thrashing a general, Catherine the Great looking for the bathroom, and Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar hosting the Great Royal Ball of 1913, the last such formal occasion of its kind.

As we enter the Great Nicholas Hall, the opulent room is filled with thousands of aristocrats dancing the mazurka in gorgeous period costumes. A full orchestra is playing in the background and young soldiers are nattily dressed in their uniforms. How beautiful it all seems and how it appears they were destined to live forever but we all know how the nasty Bolsheviki spoiled the party. Ah yes, how green was my valley then. Sokurov said he wanted to make a whole film "in one breath" and he has succeeded in simulating the breathing process, pulling us in, then moving us out as we feel the rhythm of our own life beating with the swirl of lost humanity. At the end of Russian Ark, we see the peaceful flow of a river outside the hall to which the narrator comments, "The flow is forever. Life is forever." Having completed the past, our invisible guide is now ready to move into the endless silence that is, in the phrase of the Anglican priest Thomas Kelly, "the source of all sound".

Western fascination with Russia -whether the land of the Tsars or the cruel empire of the madman Stalin - is one of our unending cultural fixations. Endlessly studied, painstakingly analyzed, mocked and admired - Russia is a massive, ongoing colossal story. An enigma that never yields its deepest secrets.

Director Aleksandr Sokurov is the voice of the anonymous inquisitor who accompanies nineteenth century French marquis Sergei Dreiden (Sergei Dontsov) on a breathtaking tour of the physical and spiritual Hermitage of St. Petersburg. He has made a groundbreaking, stunning film. Shot from a Steadycam in one continuous over hour-and-a-half stream, the film explores the treasures of one of the world's greatest museums. Equally, "Russian Ark" rambles, without regard for chronological order, through snatches of Russian and Soviet history, each short episode a fantastical peep into a wild, rich, often terrifying but always fascinating world.

In the nineteenth century European travellers, most often men (Charles Dickens, for example) and some women (Fanny Trollope for one) visited and wrote about the two untamed civilizations that beckoned to foreigners and promised adventure and intrigue: Russia and the United States. Count Dreiden, a not atypical Frenchman of haughty self-assurance and ample means, viewed Russians as boorish and their culture a gilt-splendored front for a nearly barbarous land. His book would not have been picked up by a publisher linked to the travel industry.

In "Russian Ark" Dreiden is more muted than he is in print but his unquestioning cynicism comes through as Sokurov captures the imagined journey in one building of a French nobleman through both his time and a future he questions without developing much understanding.

So we have both an Acoustaguide tour of a wonderful palace of culture and myriad treasures and snapshots of everyone from Catherine the Great to Nicholas and Alexandra and their children, including an adorable Anastasia, fated to be one of history's silly mysteries. Noblemen and contemporary sailors, bemedaled officers and bejeweled women, a cultured woman gallery guide and apparatchiks - they all fleet through and interact with the questioning but stolidly biased Frenchman.

How did Sokurov pull off a continuous take through over 4,200 feet of the Hermitage with a cast of many hundreds, gorgeously costumed, without a hitch? Unbelievable! That feat alone propels him into the Cinema Pantheon of Fame. At times I felt like I was drawn into the crowd, especially when they depart a dance to head for a fabulous banquet (the dance band is conducted by Valery Gergiev, the only famous - to Westerners - person in the film). And even though I knew from reviews that Sokurov pulled it off, I kept waiting for the seemingly inevitable "Cut!" following a miscue or stumble.

The hint of intrigue and menace that is so much part of Russia's past and present lurks behind an almost impressionistic front with scenes of one-dimensional gaiety almost but not entirely hiding a complex society. Sokurov teaches and teases simultaneously.

As visual splendor and directorial innovation this is one of the great films of our time. I look forward to owning it on DVD knowing that its magic can never be realized fully outside a theater.

Don't miss this one and see it more than once.

10/10.