(RUSSKIJ KOVCHEG)
**** (out of ****)
Starring Sergei Donstov, Mariya Kuznetsova, Leonid Mozgovoy, David Giorgobiani, and Maksim Sergeyev
Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov & written by Sokurov, Anatoli Nikiforov, Svetlana Proskurina, and Boris Khaimsky, with cinematography by Tilman Buttner
2002 NR (should be G)
Dozen-or-So Best Films of 2002
“Russian Ark” is like instrumental music or Gregorian chant, with about eighty per cent of its appeal to be found in the right half of the brain. It is hypnosis, a trance, a dream, or a hallucination; it is a series of images, moods, and movements, washing over us; it is like a trip to an art museum, in which one painting does not lead to the next, but the culmination of an afternoon’s worth of beauty is somehow more impressive than seeing any individual painting on its own. Is there much of a story to “Russian Ark?” Well, no, not really, but there’s no story to Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue” or Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” Like an evening at the symphony, either you’re overwhelmed by beauty, or your attention starts to wander. I can’t speak for any one else’s experience of “Russian Ark,” but I was mesmerized from the first moment to the last.
“Russian Ark” is also an amazing technical stunt: a ninety-six minute movie composed entirely of one unbroken take. No cuts, no edits. Just one camera, recording an hour-and-a-half without interruption. This would be only mildly impressive if the camera were stationary, or simply moving around a single room or a stage. But “Russian Ark” has the entire Hermitage Museum and Palace in Moscow as its playground. We arrive in a carriage, drift through corridors and thin stairwells, cross a stage where a play is being rehearsed, float weightlessly above an orchestra, weave like a spirit through a waltz-filled ballroom, and chase Catherine II across a snow-covered garden. Because a single recording of this length would be impossible using film, “Russian Ark,” like “The Fast Runner” from earlier in 2002, was captured using high-definition digital video. “Russian Ark” was rehearsed for seven months and has a cast of thousands—about two thousand to be precise—all waiting in the wings to spring out at just the right moment, in just the right room. Most of its sound has been dubbed or looped in post-production, and some is not perfectly synched, but if we can be swept along by its vision, we can forgive its aural shortcomings.
(A similar stunt was pulled by Alfred Hitchcock in “Rope.” That film created the illusion of being a single unbroken shot, but Hitch’s camera could only hold ten minutes of film at a time. Cuts are hidden throughout the film, usually when objects pass in front of the camera. On VHS the cuts aren’t too hard to spot, and Hitch, who was no realist, probably wouldn’t mind. I’ve yet to watch the new DVD of “Rope” to see if the effect has been cleaned up any.)
In an ideal world we would all have the time, patience, and money to see “Russian Ark” three times on the big screen. The first time through is to ignore the subtitles, the slim story, and everything the movie has to say about the relationship between Russia and Europe. Ignore all that, and soak up everything you see and hear, the eerie, distantly heard music, the calming whispers of the Russian narrator, and the sleepy, dreamy way the camera swims through one of the most beautiful palaces in the world, a place of plaster, marble, and so much gold. Just sit back and let it lull you into a trance, like some kind of reverse-IMAX.
The second time through, give the subtitles a chance. Everything we see is through the eyes of a nameless, faceless narrator (voice of director and co-writer Aleksandr Sokurov), who is traveling through the Hermitage Museum like a ghost. He has no memory of how he got there or what he’s supposed to be doing, and in every room he witnesses a scene from a different historical era. One minute there are men with swords in red uniforms and women in giant, glittering gowns. The next moment he is surrounded by modern-day tourists, gazing on the Museum’s paintings, and in the room after that he has returned to the time of powdered wigs. We briefly visit Nicholas, Alexandria, and Anastasia, we overhear three curators during the Communist era, and we walk in on a man who might be looting the palace during the revolution. We also witness Persian diplomats presenting a formal apology to the tsar, in a ceremony as elegant and slow as a Latin Mass. Are these figures ghosts who come to life at night in the Hermitage, or is the narrator a time traveler, or has he simply fallen asleep reading a book on Russian history?