Ciao!

Russian Ark

After months of waiting, I finally got to see Russian Ark this evening. It's an amazing conceptual film. Technically: The longest single shot in movie history (the movie was made in one single take). The largest cast in a movie (over 2,000 actors and three full orchestras). In short, brilliant in its technical magnificence.

OK, so what of the movie?

The movie starts a little slow, but it has no choice. The narrator (the camera's "eye") is thrown back in time inside St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum (the old czarist palace). We get an inside tour of the palace (it was filmed there) and a menagerie of characters from across two centuries of Russian history. We meet an 18th century French diplomat who serves as a tour guide and critique.

The film confronts the core of "the Russian question." What is Russia? Is it European? Or something else? What we see, is a portrait of Russia as clearly imitating Western Europe. But mostly in its opulence, it's "imperial style." Our eccentric French diplomat begins insulting the palace. Pushkin was nothing special. Russian art was a poor copy of the Italian style. The architecture's "not bad." The narrator wants to be insulted, he objects. But we see a visible retort. The paintings and scultures are by Flemish and Italian masters. The clothing in the French Imperial style. Nothing looks Russian; it's all copies.

Still, the narrator objects. There is a Russian stamp, a Russian greatness. But where? In the end, it's a question about the core of all nationalisms. What is it that makes us so unique? And. Should we even care?

It's a great movie. Thoughtful and funny. Charming and sad.

Posted by Miguel at 11:48 PM