Russian Ark

[Inferno]

Love it / hate it / indifferent?

I was certainly intrigued by the film. Visually beautiful certainly. The ballroom scene in particular is impressive. And a surprisingly touching ending. But somehow I never really got caught up in the film. I was never engaged in what was happening. Maybe its that its so different from anything else I've see (no real characters or plot for example) that I need to see it several times before final judgement? Or maybe its my lack of knowledge of Russian history?

I can understand why the critics love it though. When you see 300+ movies a year - most being unoriginal pieces of fluff - something like this must be like opening the windows in a house that's been locked down for 30 years.

I would recommend it to lovers of cinematic technique and those they want something different from the normal movie experience. But whether I really ejoyed it or not I'm still trying to decide.

[rosncranz]

in case people dont know, the entire movie is all one shot, and it was done on the first take.

[clrb15]

Yeah. When I saw the trailer for Russian Ark on Apple Trailers I was very intrigued. Come on, a film shot entirely on one take with thousands of people moving around should really get you interested. Especially for people who are into filmmaking (like me). I don't really know a lot of Russian History but if I do get a chance to watch it, I'll be watching it more for it's technical aspects.

[Frizzo the Clown]

I've never seen it, but I've heard of it and I'm quite intrigued by the concept. I'm gonna have to see if I can find this somewhere......

[Inferno]

It was done on the third take actually. And they were only given one day to do it by the Museum owners.