(2002; Russian) In a single, continuous 90-minute take - "a film in one breath" - director/co-writer Alexsandr Sokurov and his cameraman Tilman Büttner (on the fourth and final try) captured a cinematic marvel on a metaphysical guided tour: 300 years of Russian history, art, and life inside the Winter Palace, St Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum, in real time.

With no cutting or editing permitted (though some atmospheric coloring occurred via computerized enhancements), a cast of 867 trained actors along with more than 1,000 extras performed flawlessly inside a time machine of ideas and dreams where philosophy, transmuted into music and nostalgia, reaches a crescendo of emotional catharsis.

"Everyone can see the future, but no one remembers the past," says the skeptical French Marquis (Sergey Dreiden) to the invisible narrator accompanying him throughout a tour of the Hermitage, itself the film's protagonist. Shadowed by a spy, the arrogant 18th-century European diplomat (astonished at finding himself in St Petersburg a century out of his own time period and fluent in Russian) meets the narrator, himself awakening from unconsciousness after an accident, in a crowd of 19th-century aristocrats entering the Winter Palace for a ball.

The pair pass elaborate tableaus of indeterminate events, people costumed from various eras - "Russia is like a theatre," says the Marquis, critical of Russia as an empire of copyists who embraced European attitudes and culture, lacking original ideas (not permitted by its rulers): Peter the Great built the city on a swamp, taught his people how to enjoy life, and executed his own son; Catherine the Great appears (in 1764 her purchases of art founded the original collection) applauding a private performance of one of her own compositions before rushing off (needing to piss); in the Italian gallery (warm paintings in a wintry clime) the narrator introduces the Marquis to two elderly, contemporary, 21st-century friends, a doctor and an actor (who wonder at the visitor's odor of formaldehyde), with whom we view The Birth of John the Baptist, taking note of the chicken and cat (representative of greed and cruelty) in the foreground.

Remarking on the poet Pushkin arguing with his wife nearby, the Marquis cries out "Momma!" when he recognizes the sculptures of Canova; next we step into the salon of Flemish masters with a knowledgeable woman, (an angel?) who points out the symbolism in Van Dyck's The Virgin and the Partridges before disappearing. Regarding a Rubens and musing on "the eternal people," the stranger is informed he must leave as the museum is closing; but in another suite he accosts a young man mediating before a painting of the Apostles Peter and Paul, questioning him (he comments on "dust from the roads") about his ignorance of Scriptures.

Hearing music and told the composer is Glinka, a Russian, the arrogant Frenchman retorts: "All composers are German." Works by El Greco precede an encounter with a woman communing (sharing a secret, she says) with the painting of a nude odalisque before she dances off. Sailors mention that the art works were saved from a fire sometime in the 1800s (uncertainly exactly when); the Marquis then opens a door upon a frigid room with empty frames and a man constructing his own coffin (suggestive of the siege of Leningrad during the war with Germany that cost one million Russian lives).

"Beauty and opulence," acknowledges the Marquis before approaching Empress Catherine II, who retreats out the palace and down a snowy path; hushed conversation among three of the museum's directors hint at the danger of speaking honestly during the era of Stalin; "luxury and regal splendor," he observes as the two enter a hall where a formal ceremony is taking place, Tsar Nicholas I receiving an apology from the Persian envoy, the shah's grandson, for the death of Russian diplomats killed in Tehran.

Informed he has no business here, we follow the Marquis out to where children are joyously racing through the halls and suites, into a dining scene with Nicholas and Alexandria, and finally a ballroom of music and dancing with the same characters with whom we began this promenade. When the narrator says it's time to move on, the Marquis says, "I'm staying," while everyone else in their silks and medaled uniforms grandly proceed toward the exit.

At the conclusion in the one camera shot separated from the foregoing, we are shown a sea outside the Hermitage on which it floats like an ark, carrying the treasures of Russia's heritage.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .