Decription: Russian art
film which muses on culture and change from the 1600's to the present.
Set in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the movie is one continuous
shot.
This movie was freaking cool.
It was in Russian with English subtitles.
You board the ark along with a disembodied narrator who does not know where
or when he is as the movie begins. As the scenes unfold, he identifies
various characters (and therefore time periods) and, of course, the location.
He is joined by this random French guy from the 1830's who is quite surprised
that he can speak Russian ("I speak Russian so well!") and is quite snarky
throughout the film.
The french guy interacts with some of the
characters while our narrator just hovers and provides commentary. The
entire film is from his view point. We walk into scenes involving Peter
the Great, Tzar Nicholas II and his doomed family, modern Russian intellectuals,
a blind woman obsessed with painting, and others. (It does help to be somewhat
familiar with Russian history, but it isn't necessary. I looked up several
of the characters after the fact.)
The time period we keep returning to is
the 1800's where Tzar Nicholas I is hosting a reception, dinner, and ball
for the Persian ambassador. My favorite scenes in the movie are the reception
- where all the court ladies are clearly checking out the cute young ambassador
(the Shah of Persia's grandson) and the ball scene which ends the film.
During the ball, we see a wonderful choreographed
mazurka, which contained a very spiffy dance move that we promptly stole
and attempted to recreate in the hallway of the theater immediately after
the movie.
Anyway... the movie has incredible costumes,
a gorgeous location, and fun dialog betwen the characters. The attention
to historical detail is amazing. The movie offers up the Hemitage (in guises
as diverse as palace, museum, playground, and morgue) as an ark, moving
through the storm of years, holding all the most significant aspects of
Russian culture, be they good or bad.
I loved it, but I must say that it is the
very epitome of art films with no actual plot, just vignettes and metaphors
for you to consider and discuss over coffee or perhaps vodka after the
film.
And okay, the one continuous shot thing
was also extremely cool - constant motion and seamless transitions between
scenes, time periods, and moods. If this film ever comes your way (it's
in extremely limited release), don't miss it.
