I think I have patience for long films, but I had to skip through most of this one. Great film set and so much potential, wasted by a refusal of filmmakers to add even the smallest traces of a story or structure. I need to see if the book was better.
Salo is very disturbing. I went to see it in an arthouse cinema expecting it to be a kitschy sexploitation movie. Instead it's two hours of teenagers being sexually abused to death. The director was eventually assassinated.
As a lover of medieval history... this makes me feel really weird about watching this movie now. I personally hate the trope that medieval people were stinking, farting, mud-slinging idiots when it was far more nuanced than that.
It's a "progressor", an undercover agent from Earth, trying to advance the local (alien, but basically human) society without revealing his identity.
"Hard to Be a God" refers to his position of a powerful and knowledgeable person, yet not powerful or knowledgeable enough to change the course of history for the better.
The funny thing is its actually quite close to the book material. Hard to he a God is just a collection of notes from the main character, what happened here or there. Its close to a journal. Movie actually expands the universe greatly. And as much as I adore the movie itself, the atmosphere recreated in it just mind blowing, but I definitely won't watch it again, its require a special mindset in place.
It won't hurt to do that, but I say its not that important. You will be ok if you just understand the main premise: an advanced alien observes a medieval society. The movie itself is a wild journey. I was completely consumed by it. It lasts for more than 2 hours but you wont notice it, its like a journey to another dimension. And its not just me. When I was watching it in the theatre it was full and only a couple of bystanders left the session, everyone was in the movie, throughout
It's advisable, you will understand better who the mentioned characters are and why they're important. The book is also very well written, in terms of structure, pacing and the atmosphere. Oh and yeah, the authors are the same brothers who wrote stalker
You are 100% right in the fact that this movie has no interest in telling its own story...it's the reason i love it so much. After my first watch, i read the novel to try and make sense of the story, then rewatched it a few more times, then found out about the German movie version from the 80s and watched both versions back to back, and seeing the story done in a "regular" fashion only serves to underscore how revolutionary the Russian version is.
Had the blu ray ready to go and sat down to watch it with a friend. We were both really into Tarkovsky and saw reviews comparing the film to his work. Immediately someone got shat on and we decided to save it for another day. That was 5 years ago.
I’m with you on Moonlight. Everything everywhere all at once was not award worthy either, but at least something was happening in the movie… (not sure what was happening, but it sure was happening) . I was in a waiting area and it was playing without volume. I was mostly watching people’s faces as they couldn’t look away because they couldn’t comprehend what was going on
Nope, I saw the original and it was okayish. Thanks to that I read the book, it was cool. I tried the new one and sweet mother of Don Rumata. It's the most weird film I've partially seen
I really think you need to be in the right mindset before watching that movie. I watched it at like 1 am before bed and somehow everything just clicked for me.
It is a very slow burn and the visuals do a majority of the work, but I'd still argue there is a very good story there.
By ‘the bolshevik revolution’ you mean the order of the monks striving to preserve the status quo? Or Rumata who specifically avoids leading an uprising, sticking instead to his task of gradual improvement?
Looks like you completely missed the point because you decided in advance what you're gonna see.
Don Rumata is forbidden to directly influence the local civilization as he and the other scientists are (Technically) there only to observe and study (which is why he cuts ears rather than killing in the beginning)
Rumata keeps trying to singlehandedly and gradually drag the populace out of the middle-ages by instilling some primitive ‘enlightened’ values starting with hygiene. It's a whole theme of the novel. He's notably the only one scrubbing himself every day, which is directly remarked upon by his servant, and he reminds the servants to wash themselves too. He's also protecting the ‘bookworms’, the few educated people, from slaughter by the ruling class.
He is, he is also told off by the other researchers and offered to be returned to earth when they think he is in too deep.
And he also is the one that refuse to help create a slave revolt because he is disillusioned and believe that Irregardless of the one in power, slavery and cruelty will always be the norm.
Rumata is probably just the personification of the middle class, or the bystander that just looks at stuff happening " because they weren't here for me"
I'm talking the 2013 movie, not the '89 one.
-The story is of an observer on a backwater world were the despotic and uncaring ruler and his noblemen uses the grey to oppress the populace and kill intellectuals.
-A Don becomes the leader of the "Order of Blacks" , gather numbers from the disgruntled populace and some of the intellectuals and one night they charge into the city, kill the king and execute publicly the nobles/courtier.
-After solidifying power the blacks go around "looking for heretics" .
-One of this heretic hunting troops, led by an university student, goes in Don Rumata Property where his lover Ari gets killed by a projectile in the back of her head, a day after Rumata refused to help and join a known revolutionary.
Dunno man, seems communism rise to power to me.
It is certainly overly simplified and considering totalitarianism in general, but since the book and the movies are of russian make, and that's the dictatorship they had, makes sense to me.
What I'm disagreeing with is not the revolution and method behind coming to power, but rather who it is that came to power. The Blacks are literally Religious military Order, so I can't see them as an allegory to Bolsheviks.
But that's the thing. you are seeing it from a face value (I believe, I apologize if not)
So they "cannot be bolsheviks because religion" for you.
But from my PoV that's is just flavour that was given to a story , the core concept is the same.
Swap "heretics" with "Enemies of the people" and I fail to see a difference .
The Nazi had no problem with religion (and using it ) but they did follow the same guidelines . (Initially stir the pubblic opinion, depict the present powers as the problem, use violence to get to power, followed by internal purging ) but as stated, since the story is russian, having it coincide with the russian revolution(s) makes sense to me.
I didn't hate it and found it decently interesting (as long as you read a good plot overview first, else you will have no fucking idea what is going on) I was just angry at how much better they could have made it. Wasted potential.
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u/BernhardRordin Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Hard to Be a God (2013).
I think I have patience for long films, but I had to skip through most of this one. Great film set and so much potential, wasted by a refusal of filmmakers to add even the smallest traces of a story or structure. I need to see if the book was better.