To put it simply, Russian Ark is an incredible, jaw-dropping experience. I use the word ‘experience’ rather than ‘film’ because it is as much of a spectacle created to be experienced and felt, as it is a film to be discussed, dissected, and pondered over. I mean this as a compliment, since there is more going on in this film on an intellectual level than I could possibly touch upon in just a few paragraphs. For starters, it contains the single longest unedited take in the history of cinema. That take lasts the film’s entire 96-minute running time and takes us not only through the entire Russian State Hermitage Museum, but through 300 years of Russian history as well.
Writer/ director Aleksandr Sokurov has made a film that is unique and so visionary that it is impossible not to applaud his efforts, whether you like the film or not. Fortunately, I include myself in the first group, as the film moved me on an emotional level and perplexed me on an intellectual level. The film begins with the camera floating through a group of 18th Century Russians on their way to a ball. A Russian narrator – the man behind the camera – discusses his surroundings and soon finds that he can wander around the Hermitage completely unnoticed. Before long, he meets the Marquis de Custine, a former French diplomat who, strangely enough, has the same ability to move around the grand corridors undetected by all but a few of the museum’s inhabitants.
From the narrator’s opening line and throughout the film, it is apparent that the Marquis and our narrator are from the afterlife, traveling through the museum and all of modern Russia’s history for some unknown purpose. The ghostlike movement of the camera puts you in a trance, as Sokurov shows the Frenchman moving in and out of historical events, appreciating the museum’s art, and talking with patrons in the past and present. Sokurov’s love for Russia, its history, and its people is evident, but it is not necessary to know anything about Russian history, or even art in general, to enjoy Russian Ark.
There are those who have called the use of the single take a gimmick that serves no real purpose other than to “wow” the viewer, but even if it is a gimmick it’s one of the most impressive in the history of cinema. Sokurov explains his reason for the single take by saying “…it is a tool with the aid of which a specific artistic task can be resolved. It’s just a tool. I wanted to try and fit myself into the very flowing of time, without remaking it according to my wishes.” By fitting himself into the “very flowing of time,” he also puts the viewer there with him. We go from the 18th Century to the 21st Century simply by opening a door, and the lack of transitions allows the past and present to flow together, making Russian Ark a truly cohesive experience.
Writer/ director Aleksandr Sokurov has made a film that is unique and so visionary that it is impossible not to applaud his efforts, whether you like the film or not.- Derek Smith
