Russian Ark By: Alexander Sukurov

Sukurov did quite the job utlizing his set, the Winter Palace, organizing his camera crew and actors/actresses, and controlling the action within the individual frames. His talents allowed him to complete the longest uninterrupted shot and the first feature film created in a single take. If he wouldn't of been able to maintain control of any of the previous factors, the movie would have lost much of its peculiarity, mystery, and flow. He accomplishes this by being the invisible narrator and the various camera angle. Since Sukurov plays the narrator, he is able to direct us to the planes of action he want us to see. He really takes advantage of the variation of the camera angles by zooming in when there is a change of scene and then zooming back out when we arrive in the correct set.

Sukurov's overall idea for the film, including the director-narrator character and his interactions with various fictional/non-fictional characters from different time periods, allowed him to manipulate the setting because there are many, different planes of action occuring. He is able to interact with some of these characters while in other scenes he is not seen at all. This in it self creates varying feelings to individual scenes. This creates and extravegant film filled with lavish costumes which are surrounded by luxurious settings. Although the plot is quite unorthodox, it plays out beautifully. He chooses to highlight centuries of Russian history, which was extremely interesting, and portrays the contrast of culture throughout the ages. Many of the operas and plays that were shown throughout the film were from the time of Catherine the Great but we also see other events such as the formal court proceeding offered up by a tsar. . The climax of the movie is a grand ball in which there are hundreds of people entering in through a grand staircase. I wondered if there was any meaning in that some scenes the narrator-director was seen vs. the scenes he was not visible in.

Overall, the film was one of the best maintained, uninterrupted films that I have seen. I learned so much and was still awe struck by the filming, casting, and costumes.