GRADE: 10
A 19th century French aristocrat, notorious for his scathing memoirs about life in Russia, travels through the Russian State Hermitage Museum and encounters historical figures from the last 200+ years.
Original Title: Russkiy kovcheg
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Country: Russia | Germany | Japan | Canada | Finland | Denmark
THOUGHTS:
A hallucinatory, kaleidoscopic journey through Russian history, which may be the most astounding technical marvel ever to be filmed. It’s a movie with such enormous ambition and prowess that it immediately feels like a landmark just a few minutes in. Like the Hermitage museum it’s shot in, the film contains the ghosts of history—with all the horror, majesty, sadness, and beauty they represent. The final shot of a dark gray, fog-covered ocean opens the movie up to a more universal meditation on time, mortality, and eternity. Beautiful, frightening, poetic.