Under Electric Clouds
Written by: Alexey German Jnr.
Directed by: Alexey German Jnr.
Russia, 2015
In 2013, renowned Russian filmmaker Alexey German died before he could complete his astonishing final film Hard to Be a God which, after being completed by his wife, screenwriter Svetlana Karmalita, and his son Alexey German Jnr, screened at last year’s London Film Festival. This year, Alexey German Jnr, himself an accomplished filmmaker, arrives with his studied portmanteau film about modern Russia, Under Electric Clouds. German’s film speculates on a Russia of the not too distant future, struggling to find its identity and deal with the legacy of the Soviet era in a series of loosely connected stories. The result is a reflective, contemplative, perhaps a little sleepy, but ultimately intriguing look at Russian malaise in the 21st century.
Its 2017, one hundred years since the October Revolution and a monolithic tower stands uncompleted. A construction...
Written by: Alexey German Jnr.
Directed by: Alexey German Jnr.
Russia, 2015
In 2013, renowned Russian filmmaker Alexey German died before he could complete his astonishing final film Hard to Be a God which, after being completed by his wife, screenwriter Svetlana Karmalita, and his son Alexey German Jnr, screened at last year’s London Film Festival. This year, Alexey German Jnr, himself an accomplished filmmaker, arrives with his studied portmanteau film about modern Russia, Under Electric Clouds. German’s film speculates on a Russia of the not too distant future, struggling to find its identity and deal with the legacy of the Soviet era in a series of loosely connected stories. The result is a reflective, contemplative, perhaps a little sleepy, but ultimately intriguing look at Russian malaise in the 21st century.
Its 2017, one hundred years since the October Revolution and a monolithic tower stands uncompleted. A construction...
- 10/18/2015
- by Liam Dunn
- SoundOnSight
Stars: Leonid Yarmolnik, Gali Abaydulov, Yuriy Ashikhmin, Remigijus Bilinskas, Aleksandr Chutko, Valeriy Boltyshev, Evgeniy Gerchakov, Yuriy Tsurilo | Written by Aleksei German, Svetlana Karmalita | Directed by Aleksei German
Cinema is often described as an experience; it can be emotionally draining and even an endurance. Hard to be a God (Trudno byt bogom) is one such film, and at three hours long it takes some watching; but for fans of cinema, it is worth every minute of it…
A group of scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to aid it though the medieval phase of its history. Not permitted to interfere violently they are forbidden from killing. When one of the Scientists Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) tries to save the local intellectuals from being executed, he is finally pushed into action. Put into the position of a God, Rumata ponders what he can do, knowing the whole time that his actions are...
Cinema is often described as an experience; it can be emotionally draining and even an endurance. Hard to be a God (Trudno byt bogom) is one such film, and at three hours long it takes some watching; but for fans of cinema, it is worth every minute of it…
A group of scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to aid it though the medieval phase of its history. Not permitted to interfere violently they are forbidden from killing. When one of the Scientists Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) tries to save the local intellectuals from being executed, he is finally pushed into action. Put into the position of a God, Rumata ponders what he can do, knowing the whole time that his actions are...
- 9/16/2015
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
★★★★☆ Aleksei German's epic Dark Ages sci-fi Hard to Be a God (2013) took over a decade to make its way onto DVD and Blu-ray this week. Shot on-and-off for more than six years, the revered filmmaker regretfully passed away before the lengthy edit could be completed, but thanks to his wife and co-writer, Svetlana Karmalita, and son Aleksei German Jr, audiences now have the opportunity to wallow in his final picture in all its repugnant glory. For Hard to Be a God is a three-hour wade through shit, mud and blood - in the best possible way. Plot is of secondary importance to German, and the majority of its transmission to the viewer comes in croaking introduction laid over monochrome images of a medieval township.
Snow gently drifts down as a static and beautifully composed establishing shot sets the scene, but it this is the last moment of such serenity. Marauding...
Snow gently drifts down as a static and beautifully composed establishing shot sets the scene, but it this is the last moment of such serenity. Marauding...
- 9/13/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
As far as the immersive powers of cinematic spectacle go, it’s doubtful any will come close to rivaling the achievements of Russian auteur Aleksei German, a figure many have hailed as the post important director in his country following Tarkovsky. And yet, he is still largely unknown, at least in comparison to the worldly renown of his comparable peers. Over his five decades as a filmmaker, German only produced five films, a perfectionist whose later works far outshine the fastidiousness displayed in the comparable methods of someone like Stanley Kubrick.
Obtaining a serviceable print of his titles often proves difficult (though the tenacious may yet unearth bootleg copies here and there), which hasn’t helped audiences acclimate to his idiosyncratic style. Passing away while working on the finishing touches of his last film, Hard to Be a God, a sci-fi epic taken as representative of the director’s work,...
Obtaining a serviceable print of his titles often proves difficult (though the tenacious may yet unearth bootleg copies here and there), which hasn’t helped audiences acclimate to his idiosyncratic style. Passing away while working on the finishing touches of his last film, Hard to Be a God, a sci-fi epic taken as representative of the director’s work,...
- 6/30/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
A publicity still from Hard to be a God
If you, like many, have been waiting so many years for Soviet/Russian master Aleksei German to finish what, upon the director's passing in 2013, has ended up being his final film (with finishing touches by his wife and co-writer Svetlana Karmalita and his son Aleksei German Jr.), you will have to embrace muck. You will have to swim in shit, slather yourself with grime, dirt, and water, enrobe yourself in filthy fog, feel roughened leather, splintered wood, caked and hardened cloth, rusted and creaky iron armor; you will have to embrace the damp, dank, dirty opus of cinema that is Hard to Be a God. It is cinematic texture taken to an extreme.
Based on a 1964 novel by the Strugatsky brothers (literary sources for Tarkovsky's Stalker and Aleksandr Sokurov's Day of Eclipse, among other adaptations), its barely science fiction premise...
If you, like many, have been waiting so many years for Soviet/Russian master Aleksei German to finish what, upon the director's passing in 2013, has ended up being his final film (with finishing touches by his wife and co-writer Svetlana Karmalita and his son Aleksei German Jr.), you will have to embrace muck. You will have to swim in shit, slather yourself with grime, dirt, and water, enrobe yourself in filthy fog, feel roughened leather, splintered wood, caked and hardened cloth, rusted and creaky iron armor; you will have to embrace the damp, dank, dirty opus of cinema that is Hard to Be a God. It is cinematic texture taken to an extreme.
Based on a 1964 novel by the Strugatsky brothers (literary sources for Tarkovsky's Stalker and Aleksandr Sokurov's Day of Eclipse, among other adaptations), its barely science fiction premise...
- 1/29/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Hard to Be a God
Written by Aleksey German and Svetlana Karmalita from the novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Directed by Aleksey German
Russia, 2013
“The scholar is not the enemy. The enemy is the scholar who doubts.”
Aleksey German’s Hard to Be a God is in the running for the most disgusting films I’ve ever seen. The film produces an enormously affecting, intricately detailed, and thoroughly realized visceral nightmare, one that never wanes or becomes numbing over its three-hour runtime but instead accumulates into an at-times overwhelming journey into a world run by a phantom regime of hedonist ignorance and reactionary cruelty. Built upon a twist on science fiction that probes fascinating questions about politics, morality, and the myth of the arc of human progress, Hard to Be a God uses this genre framework as a platform to manifest a carnival of depravity and filth. Decades in the making,...
Written by Aleksey German and Svetlana Karmalita from the novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Directed by Aleksey German
Russia, 2013
“The scholar is not the enemy. The enemy is the scholar who doubts.”
Aleksey German’s Hard to Be a God is in the running for the most disgusting films I’ve ever seen. The film produces an enormously affecting, intricately detailed, and thoroughly realized visceral nightmare, one that never wanes or becomes numbing over its three-hour runtime but instead accumulates into an at-times overwhelming journey into a world run by a phantom regime of hedonist ignorance and reactionary cruelty. Built upon a twist on science fiction that probes fascinating questions about politics, morality, and the myth of the arc of human progress, Hard to Be a God uses this genre framework as a platform to manifest a carnival of depravity and filth. Decades in the making,...
- 1/28/2015
- by Landon Palmer
- SoundOnSight
★★★★☆Engaging with a near-three-hour sci-fi set entirely within the bedraggled medieval milieu of a distant planet is a daunting proposition, especially one forged under the singular direction of renowned Russian filmmaker Aleksey German. Hard to Be a God (2013) is a cinematic behemoth, an unshakable monochrome nightmare of squelching bodily discharges that inhabits a world so noxious you can almost smell the pungent deterioration of humanity as it spews forth from the screen. German died of heart failure whilst Hard to be a God was still in post-production and it's with thanks to his wife Svetlana Karmalita and son Aleksey Jr. that we're able to appreciate German's work posthumously.
- 10/8/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Bombardment!
Bombardment: textures. If you, like many, have been waiting so many years for Soviet/Russian master Aleksei German (My Friend Ivan Lapshin; Khrustalyov, My Car!) to finish what, upon the director's passing last year, has ended up being his final film (with finishing touches by his wife and co-writer Svetlana Karmalita and his son Aleksei German Jr.), you will have to embrace muck. You will have to swim in shit, slather yourself with grime, dirt, and water, enrobe yourself in filthy fog, feel roughened leather, splintered wood, caked and hardened cloth, rusted and creaky iron armor; you will have to embrace the damp, dank, dirty opus of cinema that is Hard to Be a God. It is cinematic texture taken to an extreme.
Based on a 1964 novel by the Strugatsky brothers (literary sources for Tarkovsky's Stalker and Aleksandr Sokurov's Day of Eclipse, among other adaptations), its barely sci-fi...
Bombardment: textures. If you, like many, have been waiting so many years for Soviet/Russian master Aleksei German (My Friend Ivan Lapshin; Khrustalyov, My Car!) to finish what, upon the director's passing last year, has ended up being his final film (with finishing touches by his wife and co-writer Svetlana Karmalita and his son Aleksei German Jr.), you will have to embrace muck. You will have to swim in shit, slather yourself with grime, dirt, and water, enrobe yourself in filthy fog, feel roughened leather, splintered wood, caked and hardened cloth, rusted and creaky iron armor; you will have to embrace the damp, dank, dirty opus of cinema that is Hard to Be a God. It is cinematic texture taken to an extreme.
Based on a 1964 novel by the Strugatsky brothers (literary sources for Tarkovsky's Stalker and Aleksandr Sokurov's Day of Eclipse, among other adaptations), its barely sci-fi...
- 1/30/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The Rome Film Festival to award its first posthumous award to the Russian filmmaker, who died in February.
The 8th Rome Film Festival (Nov 8-17) is to present its Lifetime Achievement Award to the family of Russian filmmaker Aleksei Yuryevich German, who died in February aged 74.
The director, who was based in Saint Petersburg, was informed of the award late last year, so as to accompany the release of his new film Hard To Be a God (Trudno byt’ bogom).
The award will be accepted by Svetlana Karmalita, the director’s widow, partner in all of his most personal projects and screenwriter for the filmmaker’s last two features, along with their son Aleksei A. German, who won the Silver Lion at the 2008 Venice Film Festival for Paper Soldier.
Following the ceremony, the world premiere of Hard To Be a God will be screened. Described as a “philosophical science-fiction epic”, the film was inspired by the 1964 cult...
The 8th Rome Film Festival (Nov 8-17) is to present its Lifetime Achievement Award to the family of Russian filmmaker Aleksei Yuryevich German, who died in February aged 74.
The director, who was based in Saint Petersburg, was informed of the award late last year, so as to accompany the release of his new film Hard To Be a God (Trudno byt’ bogom).
The award will be accepted by Svetlana Karmalita, the director’s widow, partner in all of his most personal projects and screenwriter for the filmmaker’s last two features, along with their son Aleksei A. German, who won the Silver Lion at the 2008 Venice Film Festival for Paper Soldier.
Following the ceremony, the world premiere of Hard To Be a God will be screened. Described as a “philosophical science-fiction epic”, the film was inspired by the 1964 cult...
- 10/8/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Soviet and Russian film director whose reputation is based on only four films, all of them masterpieces
Aleksei German, who has died of heart failure aged 74, was among the very last in a generation of film directors victimised by the Soviet Union's draconian attitude to the arts. As a result, since 1968 German had made only six films, one of them co-directed and one uncompleted at his death. Three of them were shelved for several years, and Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998), seven years in the making, was repeatedly bailed out by French money. German's reputation is based on only four films, all of them masterpieces.
Gradually, after the fall of communism in Russia, German's films were screened at cinematheques and festivals in the west. Khrustalyov, My Car!, the only one of his works that was not banned, provoked a mass walkout by critics at the 1998 Cannes film festival. According to the Hollywood Reporter,...
Aleksei German, who has died of heart failure aged 74, was among the very last in a generation of film directors victimised by the Soviet Union's draconian attitude to the arts. As a result, since 1968 German had made only six films, one of them co-directed and one uncompleted at his death. Three of them were shelved for several years, and Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998), seven years in the making, was repeatedly bailed out by French money. German's reputation is based on only four films, all of them masterpieces.
Gradually, after the fall of communism in Russia, German's films were screened at cinematheques and festivals in the west. Khrustalyov, My Car!, the only one of his works that was not banned, provoked a mass walkout by critics at the 1998 Cannes film festival. According to the Hollywood Reporter,...
- 2/26/2013
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
St.Petersburg, Russia — Alexei German, a Russian film director best known for his works offering a bitter view of life in the Soviet Union under dictator Josef Stalin, died Thursday, his son said.
German, 74, died of heart failure at a hospital in his hometown, St. Petersburg, his son, Alexei German Jr., said in a blog post.
German came to prominence internationally for his 1983 production "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" about a police investigator battling a criminal gang. Censors blocked the film's release for two years because of its realistic depiction of Soviet life in the wake of the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s.
The release of the film heralded the era of reforms launched by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and was aired on Soviet television in 1986 to much clamor and public debate.
The production of "Khrustalyov, My Car," a grotesque narrative centered on Stalin's final days, endured multiple delays due to Russia's post-Soviet economic meltdown.
German, 74, died of heart failure at a hospital in his hometown, St. Petersburg, his son, Alexei German Jr., said in a blog post.
German came to prominence internationally for his 1983 production "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" about a police investigator battling a criminal gang. Censors blocked the film's release for two years because of its realistic depiction of Soviet life in the wake of the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s.
The release of the film heralded the era of reforms launched by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and was aired on Soviet television in 1986 to much clamor and public debate.
The production of "Khrustalyov, My Car," a grotesque narrative centered on Stalin's final days, endured multiple delays due to Russia's post-Soviet economic meltdown.
- 2/21/2013
- by AP
- Huffington Post
Above and below: Khrustalyov, My Car!.
The joke about Aleksei German was always that he was great but only Russians liked him. Several years ago, I invited a non-Russian-speaker to a screening of Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998) at Brooklyn's Bam cinema. Ten minutes into the screening, an odd thing happened. I felt the urge to tell my companion to stop reading the subtitles.
The following scene prompted me: A middle-aged housekeeper opens the curtains and spikes her morning tea with cognac; someone polishes a shoe and talks about a veterinarian prone to lethargic sleep; a woman with a yoghurt facial scolds a senile lady for using a walker and, moments later, for taking a large kielbasa into bed with her. The old woman claims to be defenseless against sexual fantasies. Some words are misheard; a grocery receipt is scrutinized; a winter coat is sniffed in search of mothballs, two doll-like Jewish...
The joke about Aleksei German was always that he was great but only Russians liked him. Several years ago, I invited a non-Russian-speaker to a screening of Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998) at Brooklyn's Bam cinema. Ten minutes into the screening, an odd thing happened. I felt the urge to tell my companion to stop reading the subtitles.
The following scene prompted me: A middle-aged housekeeper opens the curtains and spikes her morning tea with cognac; someone polishes a shoe and talks about a veterinarian prone to lethargic sleep; a woman with a yoghurt facial scolds a senile lady for using a walker and, moments later, for taking a large kielbasa into bed with her. The old woman claims to be defenseless against sexual fantasies. Some words are misheard; a grocery receipt is scrutinized; a winter coat is sniffed in search of mothballs, two doll-like Jewish...
- 3/17/2012
- MUBI
Some seven years in the making, Russian director Alexei Guerman's "Khroustaliov, My Car!" needed only 146 minutes to crash and burn with critics and festival attendees as one of the most notorious films in competition at Cannes.
Incomprehensible for long stretches and unforgivably unfunny in the endless scenes of manic visual satire, "Khroustaliov" is a post-Cold War look at the heyday of Stalinism, with most of the story set in 1953 on the eve of the dictator's death. It is a relentlessly unflattering look at the people and times. The humor is flat, the characters are uninvolving, and the plot goes nowhere until the final 45 minutes or so, when one starts grasping for anything positive to justify the experience of watching this film.
The lead character is the General (Y. Tsourilo), a surgeon and Red Army VIP in Moscow who happens to have a look-alike (N. Rouslanova). With a large family including Jewish refugees, the boisterous, philandering General has managed to keep himself and loved ones safe in very dark times, but that all changes when he's involved in a KGB conspiracy.
Eventually, the General is arrested and sent to the gulag, enduring horrific torture in a rail car. Suddenly, he's called upon to save Stalin himself in a scene that tries to catch one by surprise. Believe it or not, it's a predictable payoff. The story then takes up the General's fate 10 years later in a muddled finale.
KHROUSTALIOV, MY CAR!
Sodaperaga, Goskino
Credits: Director: Alexei Guerman; Producers: Guy Seligmann, Armen Medvedev, Alexandre Goloutva; Screenwriters: Svetlana Karmalita, Alexei Guerman; Director of photography: Vladimir Ilyne; Production designers: V. Svetozarov, G. Kropatchiov, M. Guerassimov; Editor: Irina Gorokhovskaia; Costume designer: E. Chapkaits; Music: Andrei Petrov. Cast: The General: Y. Tsourilo; La Generale: N. Rouslanova. No MPAA rating. Running time -- 146 minutes. Black and white/stereo.
Incomprehensible for long stretches and unforgivably unfunny in the endless scenes of manic visual satire, "Khroustaliov" is a post-Cold War look at the heyday of Stalinism, with most of the story set in 1953 on the eve of the dictator's death. It is a relentlessly unflattering look at the people and times. The humor is flat, the characters are uninvolving, and the plot goes nowhere until the final 45 minutes or so, when one starts grasping for anything positive to justify the experience of watching this film.
The lead character is the General (Y. Tsourilo), a surgeon and Red Army VIP in Moscow who happens to have a look-alike (N. Rouslanova). With a large family including Jewish refugees, the boisterous, philandering General has managed to keep himself and loved ones safe in very dark times, but that all changes when he's involved in a KGB conspiracy.
Eventually, the General is arrested and sent to the gulag, enduring horrific torture in a rail car. Suddenly, he's called upon to save Stalin himself in a scene that tries to catch one by surprise. Believe it or not, it's a predictable payoff. The story then takes up the General's fate 10 years later in a muddled finale.
KHROUSTALIOV, MY CAR!
Sodaperaga, Goskino
Credits: Director: Alexei Guerman; Producers: Guy Seligmann, Armen Medvedev, Alexandre Goloutva; Screenwriters: Svetlana Karmalita, Alexei Guerman; Director of photography: Vladimir Ilyne; Production designers: V. Svetozarov, G. Kropatchiov, M. Guerassimov; Editor: Irina Gorokhovskaia; Costume designer: E. Chapkaits; Music: Andrei Petrov. Cast: The General: Y. Tsourilo; La Generale: N. Rouslanova. No MPAA rating. Running time -- 146 minutes. Black and white/stereo.
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