Thoughts On Sukurov's "Russian Ark"

Readers! I apologize for the slow week on Pueblo Waltz—I guess that’s what happens when I have to plow through three final papers, an exam, and a revision of a paper…as well as goodbyes to all those who will remain at Hamilton College and those who will be going abroad…


I throw in that last detail because it's about time to mention to you all that I will spend this coming semester in Edinburgh, Scotland! I’m excited to explore the city and hopefully write a little more about my experience of Scottish culture on this blog. If you have suggestions of things to do in Scotland—especially with regard to the arts—then don’t hesitate to contact me and give me a heads up!

Unfortunately, there will be no Saturday Songs this week—I’m priming for a "My Favorites of 2011 Music" list that I will post later this week—hopefully around Dec. 24 and you can all head into the holidays with some musical suggestions (or last minute stocking stuffers?!). Until then, here are a few thoughts on Sukorov’s wonderful film Russian Ark.

Cheers,

Taylor

Pueblo Waltz

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Crisp, otherworldly, and without a doubt one of the most impressive technical feats of all time, Alexander Sokurov’s 2002 film Russian Ark consists of a single unedited 96-minute shot—a journey through 33 rooms of the Russian State Hermitage Museum. A few years ago, Joe Wright got a lot of attention for the 5½-minute tracking shot during the Dunkirk sequence of Atonement, in which the camera ducks in and out of clusters of wounded and desperate soldiers waiting on the beach to return to England. There are other famous examples of epic long-shots in mainstream cinema (Hitchcock’s film Rope—of only 11 shots), but also an entire world of avant-garde cinema whose conception thrives at least partly on the nature of duration, including, infamously, Andy Warhol’s Empire (485 minutes of the same shot of the Empire State Building at night) and James Benning’s 13 Lakes—composed of 10-minute shots of 13 American lakes.

Sukorov's epic film maintains an intricate eye for period detail throughout; via moviemail-online.co.uk

But in terms of sheer, jaw-dropping incredulity, Russian Ark beats all other films over the head. Not only is the film a single shot, it is practically a ballet of extras—over 2,000 actors and 3 orchestras participated—and there are brief, flitting scenes throughout the film that all come off without a hitch. The film is a long sashay through Russian history: from into deepest, darkest corners—watching Peter the Great knock someone to the ground—to the most vibrant highlights—the final ball at the Winter Palace in 1913. Some familiar Russian history should probably be a prerequisite to the film. (I watched the film with my girlfriend Kayla, who is somewhat of a budding Russian history scholar.) But even without a firm grasp of Russian history, there is an immense joy to be taken away from this film.

The intense organization and awareness that must have gone into this film is astounding. Even during the sequences in which we follow around only “the European” (Sergei Dontsov), a character based on the Marquis de Custine, who acts as our guide through the museum, the movement of the camera opens up the viewer to a different, reflective sensory experience. The camera bobs up and down and focuses on tiny details: a hand, a face in a painting, a sculpture. So when Sukorov introduces us to the complicated sets of the film: the ball finale, the apology issued by the Shah of Iran to Tsar Nicholas II, and a play being watched by Catherine the Great, they come across as revelations of detail. There is so much to look at and Sukorov, along with his army of costume and set designers, don’t slight us a single detail. Everything struck me as formidably accurate.

But as beautiful and transcendent as these scenes are—particularly the final part of the shot as the camera moves backwards down a long hallway filled with the exiting attendants of the last ball in the Winter Palace—the scenes between the European and the narrator ended up being the most striking of the film. Indeed, I have forgotten to mention the narrator, the grizzled voice that seems to come from behind the camera. We never see a face or gain even a footnote of his personal history, but his voice guides us from room to room of the Hermitage, musing in dusty tones about Russian history and always worried that he, along with the European, will be expelled from the museum. Large portions of the film’s dialogue are discussions between these two characters, more often than not debating Russia’s sense of itself, particularly in relation to European history. The European points out several times that Russian cannot help but model itself off of Europe—in politics, in fashion, in art. Wandering through the galleries of the Hermitage, the European never fails to make his point, gesturing even the decoration of the rooms.

The European (Sergei Dontsov) criticizes the decoration in the Hermitage Museum.

But the unspoken truth that floats throughout the film is that there is one area of culture in which Russia has been preeminent for some time: film. Although the emergence of the Soviet Union undoubtedly constricted the Russian film culture into a vein of “social realism” filmmaking, film has always remained a strong tradition, producing filmmakers such as Andrei Tarkovsky. However, during the early Soviet era, the film culture in Russian produced several of the greatest filmmakers and theorists of all time: Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, and Dziga Vertov. The essence of “montage” film theory emerged from the work of these three artists—the theory that images in film “collide” with one another in a dialectical sense, such that an understanding independent of either shot emerges from the “collision.” (I ought to note that, in some ways, this is a somewhat severe simplification and those further interested in the theory should read this Wikipedia page and view Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin.)

What is so striking about Russian Ark is that it enacts—not exactly the antithesis of early Russian film theory—but in an essentially opposite way. Sukorov’s epic long-shot certainly is endebted to the Russian tradition established by Tarkovsky, who employed long-shot and slow, meditative sequences to deliberately accentuate the metaphysical qualities of his films; however, I would offer that Sukorov has nevertheless created something wholly original that emerges straight out of Russia. There is a definite way to read the thesis of Sukorov’s film as that Russia, at least in the world of film, does not depend on anyone. Russian film moves out to the world, not the other way around. If you’ve seen this beautiful film, then it’s hard to disagree with that.