Hard to Be a God (2013)

Phenomenal! Flawless! The 8th wonder! Without saying much, at this moment in time, is the greatest film masterpiece of all time. The story, the brilliant direction, camera-work, editing, visuals, characters; this is what an epic film should be. It never gets old, no matter how many times i watch it, I find something new without fail. I cannot believe this exists, and how it was made. A great many props and applause for all those that helped in the making of this masterwork of film. It has inspired me more than any other film in my film making process. An absolute wonder of the ages! -Kipp Howard

It has been a while since I saw Hard to be a God, and I keep thinking about it, so here are a few random thoughts.It's set on a planet not to be confused with, but referring to medieval Europe.I saw it as a contemplation about the power of knowledge, and the meaning of it all. It vaguely reminded me of Béla Tarr's Turin Horse cause of this contemplative tone.The visuals are so strong, that even in black and white you can smell what's going on.A note regarding the dialogue -- don't forget that this movie is supposed to be about people who can't think coherently. Don't expect any coherence in their speech.

Like many of their novels, Strugatsky's "Hard to be a God" follows the same simple idea. The authors concentrate on a human character and their struggle when their principles and beliefs are tested coming into conflict with surrounding reality often very unusual or just straight alien. The authors are trying to study how this struggle forces the character to grow, make a choice and separate their own core principles from other over-imposed, superficial layers of social conditioning. In other words, a human character is the focus and the foreground. Everything else is just the stage.This film is a complete opposite. It concentrates on the stage, depicting it with black-and-white graphical cruelty, and leaves everything else behind. I failed to connect with this film at any level. What is so interesting about the stage that I need to watch it for 3 hours? It is just an artificial, contrived object anyway. With all due respect to Alexei German, any attempt to compare this film to Tarkovsky's "Stalker" is plain nonsense.

Negatives: 1. Could have been five stars, but three hours of basically the same difficult to understand scenes and story was exhausting. A bit of editing (like half) and you would never have known since everything was redundant from dialogue to action to mud. 2. The science is really bad, but in this case it makes no difference because it doesn't play into the story. The science is someone is sent from Earth to bring order to another planet that basically is identical to middle ages Europe from pigeons to horses to buildings to inhabitants. If the state/condition of this other planet is suppose to have some metaphorical meaning - I missed it. 3. As far as the God angle - having control over others lives - I had a hard time finding that message in this film. Maybe it was attention span, or translations, or scene overload? Positives: 1. The camera work was unique in that practically every scene is claustrophobically close in. 2. The sets and props (buildings, clothing, swords, etc.) were amongst the best I've ever seen in a period film. Very nastily real. The conditions were beyond the worst imaginable even for the extreme poverty and slum enclaves of Bangladesh, India, Mexico, Brazil. 3. Not a black & white film, but gray and gray. Everything is gray from mud to people to buildings and it all works to convey information and mood. 4. The conveyance of delusion, psychosis, schizophrenia from bizarre behaviors to nonsensical language permeate every scene along with … 5. Disgusting beyond belief fecal, snot, saliva spitting/sharing, mud sharing, body gouging scenes even imaginable ("Centipede" and "Game of Thrones" are tame, comparatively). 6. Many of the cast were selected and made up to convey a freak show setting; not sure if one could legally film such characterization in the U.S. today, but intended, I think, to show the decay of civilization. 7. Worth seeing because it is definitely unique.