I'd been making a list of movies to see some day. Obscure stuff that I'd never heard of but sound interesting. On a list of most underrated time travel movies (or some such crap) I found Russian Ark. Now that Yummy got me a NetFlix 6 month trial for Dougmas I rented it.
As far as art movies go it's great. It's an hour and a half of uninterrupted shooting. The whole film was done in one take. Ok, Wikipedia says it was 4 takes, but on the 4th take they shot the whole film. There's no editing of the film.
The movie takes place in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. You watch the movie through the eyes of the main character who is apparently immortal, invisible, and suffering some memory loss. He doesn't know when or where he is at first. He meets another person who is like him. This person doesn't know why he's here but knows he hasn't spoken Russian before. Together the two walk through the Winter Palace and through time. Each time they move to a new room they're in a different time period. They see tzars in one room, in the next it's a modern museum, then just after WWII, then Anastasia at play, then receiving diplomats from Persia, etc., etc. From time to time your companion makes himself visible and freaks people out for reasons that are never clear.
Alas, it's all in subtitles and the character you're seeing through speaks in a monotone. You can't tell when he's talking to himself or to his companion. There's no real coherent story and you spend most of the movie trying to figure out what's going on.
A+ for cinematography and art. C- for entertainment.
Don't expect this movie to entertain your children.
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