OK, so there's some things about the film that set it apart from the main-stream.
1) It's black & white, and given the subject matter (mud, faeces, guts) I was grateful for that.
2) It has some fairly surreal things going, which, as an admirer of both surrealism and dadaism, I appreciate. Random people waving chicken feet at the camera in the foreground to distract the viewer from the main action taking place in the background is kind of disturbingly fascinating.
Another premise that needs to be taken into account in my review is that I have NOT read the Strugatsky's novel. I have, however, seen the 1989 film adaptation "Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein", which I enjoyed despite its 2h duration.
German's work ... unless you have an obsession with mud and/or faeces, and are willing to tolerate filth and gore, and weird dialogue for 3h I recommend to stay clear. Setting the scene for Rumata, and the character development, could have been done in about 25 minutes, and that would have been both more than enough and possibly bearable.
I sat through the film even though people around me started leaving, and others fell asleep.
Just my two cents, maybe I'm just not the right kind of guy for this kind of movie.
1) It's black & white, and given the subject matter (mud, faeces, guts) I was grateful for that.
2) It has some fairly surreal things going, which, as an admirer of both surrealism and dadaism, I appreciate. Random people waving chicken feet at the camera in the foreground to distract the viewer from the main action taking place in the background is kind of disturbingly fascinating.
Another premise that needs to be taken into account in my review is that I have NOT read the Strugatsky's novel. I have, however, seen the 1989 film adaptation "Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein", which I enjoyed despite its 2h duration.
German's work ... unless you have an obsession with mud and/or faeces, and are willing to tolerate filth and gore, and weird dialogue for 3h I recommend to stay clear. Setting the scene for Rumata, and the character development, could have been done in about 25 minutes, and that would have been both more than enough and possibly bearable.
I sat through the film even though people around me started leaving, and others fell asleep.
Just my two cents, maybe I'm just not the right kind of guy for this kind of movie.