Aleksey German's epic masterpiece is one of a kind - I have never, ever felt so entirely immersed inside such a complete and yet completely other universe as I did when watching this film. But the fun does not stop there; along with that deepest dive into the fetid and fecal squalor of another planet in the throes of a dark age which will not lift, the film also affords a whole grab-bag of ideas about societal development, about morality and about the role of independent thinking in the progress of intelligence.
The premise of the film is relatively simple, if wonderfully metaphorical: a group of scientists have traveled through space to a planet less socially developed than earth, and they live there as semi-impotent anthropologists, not overtly interfering with the violent and ignorant society with which they now co-exist. They allow the denizens of the planet their own free will in blundering their way forward through a history of their own making.
This is not, strictly speaking, entertainment - it is long, hard work, full of mud, blood and feces, but it is vastly rewarding. Every actor is near-perfect, but Yarmolnik and Tsurilo are sublime; the former, as Don Rumata, presents a man burdened and slightly maddened with unutterable knowledge and invalid responsibility who nevertheless strives to do his best for those around him, while Tsurilo, as Baron Pampa, provides that life-embracing spark of animism that defines humans as those animals capable of feeling enthusiasm over their own existence.
Not everything makes sense here, but then again, neither do our lives. There is chaos in this world of German's, and fear, and a hope for order that is as dangerous as the chaos. But, as his widow reminded us in her opening comments to the screening of this film at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January 2014, this is, above all, a love story. This god loves us; he just can't do much about it. This film is beautiful, utterly engrossing, and unmissable.
The premise of the film is relatively simple, if wonderfully metaphorical: a group of scientists have traveled through space to a planet less socially developed than earth, and they live there as semi-impotent anthropologists, not overtly interfering with the violent and ignorant society with which they now co-exist. They allow the denizens of the planet their own free will in blundering their way forward through a history of their own making.
This is not, strictly speaking, entertainment - it is long, hard work, full of mud, blood and feces, but it is vastly rewarding. Every actor is near-perfect, but Yarmolnik and Tsurilo are sublime; the former, as Don Rumata, presents a man burdened and slightly maddened with unutterable knowledge and invalid responsibility who nevertheless strives to do his best for those around him, while Tsurilo, as Baron Pampa, provides that life-embracing spark of animism that defines humans as those animals capable of feeling enthusiasm over their own existence.
Not everything makes sense here, but then again, neither do our lives. There is chaos in this world of German's, and fear, and a hope for order that is as dangerous as the chaos. But, as his widow reminded us in her opening comments to the screening of this film at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January 2014, this is, above all, a love story. This god loves us; he just can't do much about it. This film is beautiful, utterly engrossing, and unmissable.