Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Times pass
Today's film would be just an audacious stunt if it were not so successful a production at every level.
Alexander Sakurov takes only 90 minutes, a continuous shot, a record time, to explore The Hermitage using over 2000 actors and a host of production personnel to say nothing of months of logistical preparation for the single day they have to make this unprecedented film.
Most of the film is in various periods of Hermitage history. The golden time of Peter the Great, the Catherines, some of the time just before the end of the Tzar's rule, the revolution.
Some people are in modern dress in certain galleries and a small "committee" of former directors of the museum are seen talking about what to do with and about government interference.
There is a narrator, a European who has contempt for the culture because he knows it is largely appropriated, not native, and that it will die out. Not destroyed but the Russias represented will not last.
It is actually quite dark in that respect and in the last scenes as the large, large crowd of ball attendees leave, there is overwhelming sadness. I always cry.
This is the third or fourth time I have seen it. It is timeless. The "making of" feature is interesting for five minutes but the magic quickly dissipates and so I quit watching it.
This is an automatic 5 out of Netflix5 because I have seen it over and over and it will still be a 5 because I will see it again.
