"What!" is probably all a review needs to shout but I'm going to risk being unnecessary by saying more. Russian director Aleksey German's 'Hard to Be a God' is surreal sci-fi. Imagine if our world were that in the film 'Idiocracy', not because it was our future but because it had always been. Imagine there'd never been a Medieval Renaissance because all the intellectuals were killed, leaving behind only imbeciles struggling in mud and hit. 'Hard to Be a God' is bleak, challenging viewing. There were long periods where I gave up on trying to understand the purpose of the dialogue. My patience paid out as the depressive scenes became visually hypnotic. I could pretend philosophical dividend but that would be out of sync with the clutter of madness. Maybe the moral is that without art life would be infinitely more barbaric. But maybe all that matters is that I spent three hours in a horrible grey place so that I'd better appreciate the real world we live in, warts and all. Although I can't explain it, 'Hard to be God' is the proverbial genius in insanity.
Review of Hard to Be a God
