Russian Ark

[bowieee]

Russina Ark....

Fuck me was this not one of the most exhilrating movie experiences I've had for ages. You know the feeling when your watching something totally new and exciting and it just awes you? Well this movie did that to me left and right.

Technically it's amazing. Honestly I have no idea how they did the goal they set out to do without someone fucking it up. For those of you who haven't seen this movie, It is the first ever motion picture to be filmed ALL IN ONE TAKE. Not only do they do this, they do it with flawless skill and push the limits of filmmaking. The story follows a man who drifts through time along with another as they glide through Russia's history. WHat unravels is completely beautiful. If your a big fan of Art and History this film is a must see, and for those who want to be seriously impressed with what a group of filmmakers can do when they decided to push the boundries of filmmaking this movie is for you as well.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009NHAT.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

[bob]

I had the pleasure of seeing this in digital projection back in July, and I agree that it's a mindblowing experience. Definitely the best picture of 2003 so far, both technically and emotionally brilliant. Loved the last shot.

[Shakamaker]

It was a novel and technically commendable project, and I loved every second. Truly excellent experience.

[phelonious]

How deep was your knowledge of russian history? I think I would have enjoyed this a lot more if knew what stories went with what historical figures.

Honestly I have no idea how they did the goal they set out to do without someone fucking it up.

I think they practised the choreography for something like two weeks without the camera. Then they rolled the film... first one was a botch. But the second take went off without a hitch.

[Golden Badtz]

I'm russian and I had the chance to see the film in russian and understand it completly and as a film geek I really enjoyed it..

It is true that it was pretty unbelievable how the movie was shot in 1 take only.. i don't even think the americans could do it.

It's a documentary and a good one, a much better one that Bowling For Colombine, I think, it's filmed with more skill and better techniques and in onle 1 take (which mezmorized me the most)

It's a great film... thumbs up .. and definitly one of the year's best.

[sanshodayu]

RUSSIAN ARK: ART HOUSE ODYSSEY.

Russian Ark is not only a film of incomparable technical ambition; a sinuous, languorous, labyrinthine ramble, achieved in a single, astounding 96 minute digital take, that glides stealthily through the gilded splendours of the Hermitage at St Petersburg, guided by an 18th century French diplomat- with audience and a mumbling off-screen "spy" joined as spectators to a sumptuous array of paintings and sculptures (Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Canova..), classical concerts, a grand ball, specific historical pageants and figures, including a now young, now aged Empress Catherine II; it is also a pretentious, self-indulgent elaboration of the director Sokurov's thematic concerns, a preposterous virtuoso display of costumes and choreography (marshalling a cast of almost a thousand); an extraordinary, painstakingly rehearsed theatrical performance- replete with lugubrious longueurs- that renders editing redundant; a refined examination of the links between past and present, various art forms, Russian and European civilisation, illusion and reality;a culmination of certain arthouse aspirations that also serves as a beautiful eulogy of cinema history, subjectively recalling Last Year at Marienbad, Celine and Julie go Boating, Visconti's The Leopard, Bondarchuk's War and Peace, Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Ophuls, Von Sternberg, Kubrick et al; a noble, elegiac testament to celluloid and the prodigious ten minute take, an allusive celebration tinged with melancholy; a closure, an opening; a deliciously sensuous surreal journey from within a disturbed mind, a Carrollian wander through a cultural warren; an ego trip - with camera as eye for an I - for director and viewer alike, an eyes wide shut meditation on vision, voyeurism, identity; an intimate space odyssey of 2002, an ethereal exploration of Time, a graceful, ghostly reflection on transience and the echoing footfalls of history, a remembrance of things past, a Proustian sentence; a dream, death, eternity...and none of the above.

[Shakamaker]

Dreiden was brilliant as an unnamed 19th-century French aristocrat/diplomat, known for bagging Russian art and culture. So some of the scenes where he encounters Russian citizens (in various eras) are very amusing. A bit of artistic license was taken out by the filmmakers when we see him turned-around on his beliefs, toward the end of his tour. Bit self-indulgent, that, but I don't give a fuck.