[LMS] Russian ark

Russian Ark, by Aleksandr Sokurov (Russia/Germany 2002)

The idea of this movie is, by and large, to portray the history of St. Petersburg, which means an important part of the russian history, by walking around in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg. The whole movie is filmed in only one take, and this can be interpreted as symbolizing the continuity of history: there are no cuts in life and history.
The result is a movie which is quite challenging to follow.

I would say this: it is extremely difficult to communicate through culture in a synthetic way, because in this case culture is necessary both on part of the director and on part of the public. My suspicion is that the emotions that this movie transmits are more precise and ample if the viewer at least recalls something about the historical facts and their context.

This said, it is still possible to perceive something, in an attenuated way, even in the middle of some disorientation ... it could come from the russian way of talking, that to me sounds as a mixture of calm, vaguely proud and somewhat resigned, or maybe from the fluttering movements of the camera (as if that was the viewpoint of a ghost), or maybe from the theatrical movements of the extras with their beautiful clothes and of course from the wonderful art in which the whole movie is enveloped.

In conclusion, in order to watch this movie one should be prepared to suffer a little bit through the parts that are hard to understand ... but it can be a good investment of one's own time.