Russian Ark

Movies to See Right Now

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Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in PHILOMENA

Okay – now we’re at that point in late autumn where the theaters are filling with many of the year’s best movies.

  • The French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color, with its stunning performance by 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos, currently tops my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.
  • I really liked and admired the funny, poignant and thought-provoking family portrait Nebraska from Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants).
  • Philomena, with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan is an emotionally satisfying gem.
  • The city of Rome dazzles in The Great Beauty, already a favorite for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
  • This weekend, I will write about The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, another fine thriller from that franchise, with another amazing performance by Jennifer Lawrence.

Other good choices include the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance. 12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery.

On December 7, Turner Classic Movies offers the unique Russian Ark (2002).  A narrator wanders through the Winter Palace in the famed Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.  He is from an earlier historical period, and he meets characters from other eras in Russian history.  Along the way he talks to a 19th century French companion and, sometimes, directly to us – the audience.  Sometimes the characters see each other and sometimes they don’t – all very trippy.  And here’s the most remarkable aspect of Russian Ark – it was all shot with a Steadicam in ONE 96-minute continuous shot.  Sure, it’s a gimmick, but the movie can stand on its own as a watchable art film.

Cinequest – Faust: a strikingly original slog

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Mephistopheles and Faust in FAUST

Faust is Russian director Aleksander Sokurov‘s take on the famous story of a man who bargains with the devil for knowledge of the profound, with a young hottie thrown in the deal for good measure.

I saw this film primarily because I had admired Sokurov‘s Russian Ark, a 19th century period drama in which an aristocrat wanders through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage and encounters figures from earlier in Russian history.  Sokurov filmed the entire 99-minute movie in a single shot.  That’s a gimmick, but even beyond the singular achievement of the one shot, Russian Ark is a complete and effective film.

The German language Faust is also strikingly original.  Filmed in the Czech Republic, Sokurov vividly creates a grimy and economically depressed German town of the early 1800s.  The alleys, doorways and staircases are all so narrow that people are constantly jammed together. Sokurov’s Faust is not an old man, but a 40-year-old beaten down by poverty and malaise.  Similarly, his Mephistopheles is not a slick charmer, but physically gross and repellent character who is a canny manipulator.

Unfortunately, the originality is for naught, because the film fails to engage the viewer.  You watch Faust with the indifference one feels while observing someone park a car awkwardly.

Faust’s Aspect Ratio is a TV-like 1.37 : 1 (but goes wider for the final scene),  which is odd for a literary epic.  And some of the scenes are filmed through a distorted lens for some reason.  The 140 minute length just contributes to the sense of self-indulgence by Sokurov.   It’s not a pleasant way to spend 140 minutes of your life.