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In its most decipherable form, the stunt of the film (outside of its single-take arc of time) perambulates about the Russian State Hermitage Museum, tracking through different periods and movements with an unidentified stranger, a host if you will, who encounters somewhat of the sense of displacement as the viewer. (Once again, the DV cannot hold a candle to the fire of film, causing additional disability in some of the poor quality of what we’re looking at, even if we know what it is.) The preserved and reenacted past (“St. Petersburg has the best balls in Europe”), meticulously coordinated and choreographed is a wonderful collection of the obscure and unique, which is enlightening and stifling all at the same time. Adjustment is necessary for the bewilderment of the film’s initial discourse and purpose, as well as the scale of its ambition, never stopping to take a breath or clarify. Russian Ark boils at root down to a clash of cinema versus theatrics, particularly as director Aleksandr Sokurov seeks to experiment with the conventions of film, unevenly mixed with the theatrical presentation, the stage demeanor, the costumes and make-up, the attitude of the-whole-show-must-go-on-and-all-at-once, and near the end, the finalizing blow of stultification, the sempiternal ballroom dance; the thing just becomes exhausting. Despite what would be assumed as the seamless flow assisting the free-roaming camera from scene to scene, and aside from the groundbreaking experimentalism (much more so, and fully executed unlike Mike Figgis’ Time Code), the factor of over-indulgence — and perhaps over-information — racks up an attrition of attention, even if there is a faint recollection of the lost and wandering baroque hallways in Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad. With Sergei Drieden.

[Worth-seeing.]

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=6240&reviewer=172
originally posted: 04/21/04 07:35:41
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