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Critics Consensus: As successful as it is ambitious, Russian Ark condenses three centuries of Russian history into a single, uninterrupted, 87-minute take.
Critic Consensus: As successful as it is ambitious, Russian Ark condenses three centuries of Russian history into a single, uninterrupted, 87-minute take.
All Critics (104) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (93) | Rotten (11) | DVD (4)
Part pageant and museum tour, part theme-park ride and historical meditation.
This is as immersive-and as Shining-level spooky-as history gets.
The movie's smooth voyage comes to seem like a dream play, suspended painlessly in time.
Might well be the first real masterpiece of the 21st Century.
A marvel of a film that makes the Hermitage its star.
This is a stunning film, a one-of-a-kind tour de force.
Meet the ghost of the past, the ghost of the present. How become what we are and why art is our living history. [Full review in Spanish]
A highly recommended documentary. [Full review in Spanish]
Russian Ark is an astounding technical feat that must be seen to be believed.
Despite an undeniable attraction to the majestic, Aleksandr Sokurov seems equally adverse to straightforward spectacle, approaching potentially colossal subjects from odd, specific angles.
It's worth noting that the footage was manipulated ... in post-production, but this unbroken take still functions as a documentary record of an exceptional logistical feat.
[Characterizes] history as a large rush of information so huge, alive, and easy to get lost in that it would feel a shame if there existed nothing to give us a conduit to it.
Russian Ark should be remembered not only as a breathtaking logistic accomplishment that knocked me off my chair with its stunning single take using a Steadicam and digital technology, but also as a sumptuous travel through Russian history and an unforgettable homage to the Hermitage Museum and to Art itself.
Super Reviewer
A never-seen ghostlike figure wanders through the Hermitage Museum (previously home to the Czars) in St. Petersburg, watching re-enactments of Russian history and debating art and culture with a French aristocrat companion. With thousands of extras, it's pulled off in one amazing 95-minute take. It's more than a bit stuffy and tailored to the delicate sensibilities of the fine arts crowd, but it's impossible not to be impressed by the pageantry and technical achievement.
The ark here is the famous Hermitage of St.Petersburg, mysteriously afloat on the sea of time and of Russian history. The camera glidingly takes us through the opulent splendour of the great halls, lingering ever so over the detail in the architecture or some exquisite furniture, and we see those walkways and rooms peopled with the souls that must have tarried there before (as in a dream ... for they neither see nor hear us). And so a history lesson, a memorial if you will, a toast to what was Mother Russia (and not that whole Soviet business, what was that?), with a eye to what more may come.
One of the most extraordinary films I have ever seen. Shot I one breath as they say with 2,000 actors, 3 orchestras, 300 years of Russian History.
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