Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark revisits 300 years of Russian history by wandering through St. Petersburg’s endless State Hermitage Museum in a single take. The camera flits among centuries as easily as it moves from room to room. It’s best not to try to apply logic to the movie and instead wonder at its bravura technical feat. By its climax – a nearly 10-minute
immersion in a 1913 ball – Russian Ark has become a stunt of immense beauty, not to mention the most clever living history museum you have ever
seen.
