For the past week and a bit I’ve been chipping away at a bit of a review/summary of a film I saw with Michael and Berk at the Melbourne International Film festival. Whenever I go to write some more I get distracted or give up so here’s the trailer plus a semblance of what I managed to write. I would highly recommend it if you’re in to long Russian films filled with gore, public urination and crazy medieval people.

Going into a film knowledgeable of it’s mammoth 3 hour running length does influence your reading of it but I feel that if I didn’t know this I would have felt even more confined by the world presented in Hard To Be A God. For anyone who witnessed Aleksei Yuryevich German’s swan song at MIFF without the knowledge of it’s running time must have felt completely imprisoned in the claustrophobia of the film unaware it would ever reach a conclusion. Like the films protagonist Don Rumata a human scientist sent to a far away planet to study it’s transition from medieval life into prosperity, we the audience felt far from earth, longing for comfort.

The film drudged through long takes of sheer brutality, the camera situation amongst the bustling panicked scenes. Dialogue was delivered alongside grunts, wails and screams directly to the face of the listener so as not to be lost amongst the din of its medieval setting. The film kept the audience at a constant state of unease as characters struggles in confined locations.

Every single monochromatic shot was dripping with mud, the medieval setting of the film was purely horrific. This film made even the most stark and brutal representation of this age look glossy and romanticised. Each shot features some form of rotting food or carcass covered in mud. Black Blood mixed with mud and water, becoming just another layer of grime the characters existed within.

The film took the audience in a vicious head and did not relent. So often the camera was shoved in the face of  grotesque looking beings before swinging wildly to follow the action.  Scene would draw on without a cut, every setting rich with characters, the camera just another bewildered onlooker. This style was incredibly alienating and blurred the distinction between omniscience and whether we were watching the film through the eyes of bewildered character. Chills went through my spine almost every time a character looked directly into the camera chuckling or staring blankly. It was truly as if like the Don we had come to this planet and were stuck there observing helplessly as vile and violent life carried on.

Due to the films brutal honesty moments of comedy were bizarre and cruel. I did not find myself alone chuckling, as the Don was attack with a giant fish upon entry into a rival’s keep. Even in the most horrific scenes of battle, failing arms became pantomimic.

Don Rumata’s longing for Earth was evident in moments of silence, juxtaposing the frantic and confonting scenes. The camera draws back no longer another character in these confrontations. These scenes usually focus on Don as he sits in a rare moment of peace ,clearly longing for home, planet Earth. The audience share his feelings of alienation and longing for home. Once again we are one of Don’s colleagues longing to return to a world where poverty and disease does not lurk around every corner of  crumbling stone. At the conclusion of the film we the audience are given our freedom, unlike Don Rumata whose only connection to the Earth he loves is the smooth jazz he plays on his primitive saxophone as he drudges on….