Since it premiered in November of 2013, the word on Hard to Be a God has been so strong that the “hype machine” may, for some, have spun into overdrive. The final film from Russian great Aleksei German (Khrustalyov, My Car!) adapts a novel, from Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (the authors behind Tarkovsky’s Stalker), about scientists who are sent to Arkanar, essentially a “second earth” that’s been stuck in the middle ages for hundreds of years. Efforts do not pan out; as our review explained, “their hope to modernize has instead turned the planet into an anti-intelligentsia haven” littered with debauchery of all sorts.
What follows is, apparently, something of a masterpiece, or at least “a stunningly radical work: a three-hour journey into the heart of darkness that doesn’t just grab you, but envelops, haunted by a moral bleakness that leaves nothing beyond the images of terror it creates. While German remains simply a curiosity in the United States (he is as beloved as Tarkovsky in Russia), Hard to Be a God is the perfection of the director’s long-take approach, likely to remain unmatched for years to come.” Ahead of a theatrical release that begins at Anthology this Friday, have a peek at the insane new trailer, packed with mud, sweat, and battle, here captured in luscious, hope-deprived black-and-white imagery. 2015 may have its first major, do-not-miss film.
Watch the trailer below:
Synopsis:
When legendary Russian auteur Aleksei German died in 2013, he left behind this extraordinary final film, a phantasmagoric adaptation of the revered sci-fi novel by the Strugatsky brothers (authors of the source novel for Tarkovsky’s STALKER). HARD TO BE A GOD began percolating in German’s consciousness in the mid-1960s, and would actively consume him for the last 15 years of his life. Happily, he brought the film close enough to completion for his wife and son to apply the finishing touches immediately after his passing. Taking place on the planet Arkanar, which is in the midst of its own Middle Ages, the film focuses on Don Rumata, one of a group of earth scientists who have been sent to Arkanar with the proviso that they must not interfere in the planet’s political or historical development. Treated by the planet’s natives as a kind of divinity, Don Rumata is both godlike and impotent in the face of its chaos and brutality.
Hard to Be a God will open at New York’s Anthology Film Archives on January 30. Check here for more dates.
What are your impressions from this preview? Are you hoping to see the film while it’s in theaters?