Hard to Be a God
aka Trudno byt bogom
First screened in December 2015
Director: Aleksei German. Cast: Leonid Yarmolnik, Evgeniy Gerchakov, Aleksandr Chutko, Natalya Moteva, Ramis Ibragimov, Valentin Golubenko, Leonid Timtsunik, Yuriy Tsurilo, Valeriy Boltyshev, Yuriy Ashikhmin, Juris Laucinsh, Anvar Libabov, Yuriy Nifontov, Vytautas Paukste, Aleksandr Seleznyov. Screenplay: Aleksei German and Svetlana Karmalita (based on the novel by Arkadiy and Boris Strugatsky).

Twitter Capsule: Sure, but this hard? If you found The Assassin gorgeous but impenetrable, have I got a muddy Russian epic for you.

VOR:   As opaque and over-scaled as I find the film, it's an astonishing feat of production, standing as its own formidable vision despite debts to Tarkovsky and the Strugatskys. An event.



Photo © 2013 Sever Studio/Kanal Russia 1/Lenfilm,
© 2015 Kino Lorber

Not yet reviewed in full. Grade: B


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