'Russian Ark' (2002)

(Blog written Winter, 2015)

(Russian Ark)

Being a lover of long takes and tracking shots, Alexander Sokurov's ground-breaking film was something I had to watch as soon as I heard about it. Shot in a continual uninterrupted take, it was an experience of exquisite seamlessness as I travelled through 300 years of Russian history. The spectator is looking through the eyes of the main character, a ghost that is trapped in history undergoing an extreme existential crisis to say the least. His confused and disorientated voice over is minimal though, leaving the talking to the hilariously brilliant Marquis, a representation of European aristocracy looking down on Russian Art and history. Each time a door opened I experienced an explosion of the senses, a feeling of complete newness that was incredibly powerful, and shows what can be so intrinsically special about cinema. Film history is populated with long tracking shots, becoming a characteristic of some filmmakers like Max Ophuls or Stanley Kubrick, and influencing incredible scenes like 'the copacabana shot' in Goodfellas (1990) which achieves that unique explosion of the senses that a tracking shot can initiate. But, never before this had a film been shot in one take, although there have been attempts, most notably by Hitchcock with Rope (1948).

Ultimately, this was a pivotal moment in film history. The only pitfall is that I was unable to experience this in the cinema!