Russian Ark- A film by Alexander Sokurov
If you have not seen this movie, it is a must. I was completely blown away by this, I have never seen anything quite like it. It ran for 90 minutes and was recorded with a hand held steady cam. The entire movie was shot IN ONE TAKE and had a cast of over 2000 extras. I was also surprised to find out that this movie was shot in 2001. I thought it would be older, maybe that's because of the time period that they were referenceing, but I'm not quite sure what that time was either. The costumes and imagery were stunning. The film was shot in 33 rooms at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and after 4 takes, the shot was a success.
In the film we follow around an unnamed narraor that is behind the camera who implies that he has died in some horrible accident and is a ghost drifting through the palace. In each room, he encounters various real and fictional people from various time periods in the city's three-hundred-year history. He is accompanied by the Marquid de Custine who represents the nineteenth-century traveller who visited Russia in 1839 and wrote a widely-read book about his visit.
In the end, the narrator leaves the building through a side exit. The building is represented as an ark preserving Russian culture, and floating in the sea.
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