This is the final film of Russian director Alexander German, who had been working on this film for over a decade with seven years of filming and almost seven years of editing, which were finalized by his son, Alexander German Jr.
It is without an opus and a great closing chapter for German's films. Firstly it differs a lot from his previous work which mainly have been centered around Soviet life and the personal troubles of the main and surrounding characthers of their stories.
Hard To Be A God however, differs a lot from this formula, having a screenplay adapted from a sci-fi novel which takes place on a completely different planet.
Now I do think that Hard To Be A God works perfectly fine as the closing chapter to German's filmography but I still wouldn't call it a perfect film and it unfortunately suffers quite hard from a couple of issues such as the absolutely impenetrable narrative and the editing issue which has led to a far too long movie and most likely what caused the narrative issues that I have found with this film.
The editing issue isn't too surprising to see when we have a film with over 7 years of documented footage, a director who passed away and a son who had to take over the project and see that his father's film was finished. This has lead to a lot of filler moments that easily could have been taken out as to not obstruct the flow and the cohesive feel of the film. We meet far too many characthers that add nothing to the film, and far too many moments that just remain huge question marks even when the film is over.
This leads me into my main issue with the film: the lost narrative. While the film is 3 hours long, it doesn't give the viewers close to any idea of what's going. Even I who've read up on this movie before seeing it felt completely lost in what was going on during its play time, even reading the plot of the novel it's based upon after seeing the movie made me barely able to piece together the scenes and the characters. I would chalk this issue up to the editing normally, but I do believe it just became such a mess that German opted to ignore the narrative and focus on the different aspects of the film which are all executed phenomenally well.
Firstly we have the acting which is absolutely perfectly done all throughout the movie, especially coming from the main characther, played by Leonid Yarmolnik. Yarmolnik plays Don Rumata, one of many sceientists sent to Arkanar and other cities on this foreign planet to study and document the people living here and to observe their historical development. Rumata may however not show why he actually is in Arkanar and has to live as the peasants that he's surrounded by. The movie is heavily surrounded around Yarmolnik's characther and he gets tons of chances to shine as the hard but just knight of the society that folks in the city seem to both fear and admire.
While Yarmonik shines in most his scenes, the real thing of beauty in Hard To Be A God is the atmosphere and the depiction of a foreign medieval world. The black and white footage along with the grotesque citizens and the detailed interior set pieces is absolutely astonishing. It gives of a dirty feel that makes me want to go wash my hands after I've finished viewing it. It's a piece of art, where shot upon shot has a horrible sense of beauty to itself. Be it shots of Don Rumata's crowded house, the snowy plains of the closing scenes, or the muddy outside, destroyed by rain.
It's a thing of beauty through and through and only the atmosphere, coupled with the camerawork is worth viewing the movie for, if you can get behind the fact that it doesn't play like an ordinary movie, opting for a loss of narrative for more beautiful scenary.
A lot of time and a lot of work have gone into this movie. Unfortunately it's not as perfect as I suppose German had wanted it to be, but it is a thing of beauty and unique beauty at that and that is something I can't hold against it.
Trudno Byt Bogom (Hard To Be A God)
dir. Alexander German
8/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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