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After first rearing its head in France, the second country to truly grab hold of the concept of the moving image was in fact the Russian Empire. Over the years its uses have changed to fit the times with the incredible and influential The Battleship Potemkin actually acting as a propaganda film. Its history truly showcases the talents that can flourish through film with many highly influential films such as Solaris and Andrei Rublev, a history that continues to this day. To showcase the variety that Russian cinema has to offer two films have been chosen that reflect both the brutal (Come And See) and the surreal (Russian Ark).
Director: Elem Klimov
Come and See is a truly extraordinary film, set in Belarus during World War II following a young boy named Florya as he joins the partisans. However, what makes the film so unique is it seems to change into something resembling a horror movie as the world around him becomes a literal hell.
The horrific aspect of Come and See is hard to overstate; dealing with the genocide committed by the Germans during the war it could hardly be avoided. However the film chooses to show it with total realism even using actual bullets, as well as a soundtrack largely made up of the endless drone of aircraft and other such noises. The hell created by Klimov is total, with the viewer becoming completely absorbed into this surreal nightmare, witnessing villages and people burnt. It becomes extraordinarily powerful and almost impossible to watch at times. Throughout all of this, Florya moves barely noticed by those around him, gradually changing from innocent child to haunted survivor, something vividly depicted in the actor's fantastically expressive face which seems to gradually corrupt throughout the film.
There is nothing comparable to Come and See in western cinema and is undeniably one of the most powerful films ever made. In terms of depicting the Holocaust, it's at least as powerful as Claude Linzman’s monumental documentary Shoah, and makes for essential viewing providing you can stomach it. An incomparable masterpiece, and perhaps the greatest war movie ever made, it is unforgettable even if you want to.
Director: Alexander Sokurov
In the discussion as to how close the disciplines of film and visual artistry are Russian Ark truly blurs the line. Here the director has somehow managed to cobble together an almost complete history of the rise and fall of the Russian Empire while maintaining a running narrative of a time-traveller who inexplicably finds different eras of history coming to life as he wanders around The Winter Palace (the former residence of the Tsar).
However, it isn’t the highly unusual story or the first-person camera work that makes this film a marvel but the sheer work that was undertaken in its filming and how impeccably it was executed. The work that is being referenced here is the organisation of multiple set pieces (including the use of over 2000 extras, an entire stately home, scripted actors and a magnificently shot ballroom scene) that were all shot in one continuous 96 minute sequence using a Steadicam. It is also when you realise that this was all achieved on the fourth attempt, with the first three failing due to technical difficulties, that the majesty of this film is actually apparent.
By no stretch of the imagination is this one of my favourite films, but for what it represents it is really essential viewing as a work of visual art.
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