It is a performances centric movie

Am I Missing Something?

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Blood, sweat, s**t, p**s and muck, it could be argued, are five of the main characters in Aleksey German Sr.'s final ultra-visceral film; a passion project that nearly spanned a decade, with editing ending after his death. Hard to Be a God is a kaleidoscope sci-fi adapted from the novel of the same name. Penned by Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy who's other notable work, Stalker, was brought to film in 1979 by Russian film legend Andrei Tarkovsky. German's masterpiece is as visceral and striking as The Revenant or Mad Max: Fury Road, with every bit of the technical achievement. Imagine Russian Ark met up with Andrei Rublev tripping on acid (an overdose of acid) having some peach schnapps with a long, ominous tracking shot from a Bela Tarr film, and all this is sprinkled with every bit the humor and grotesqueness of the "Bring out your dead" scene from Monty Python's The Holy Grail…now you are at least in the ballpark of the wild ride that is Hard to Be a God.The film's premise is based around the idea that a group of scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to assist civilization—a Medieval civilization—find it's right path to progress (so certain press clippings say). But there are rules: they cannot interfere directly, violently and in no case kill the people of Arkanar, which is a "rule" that our protagonists takes lightly. Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) is the physically imposing, gruff scientist who tries to save, or at the very least find local intellectuals or any beings with a semblance of advanced intellect…a tall task. Rumata is awakened and the film is off as if it was shot from a cannon and doesn't stop for nearly three hours, but in three hours there is no chance of your attention waning. The crisp black and white photography is beautiful and precisely juxtaposes the disgust and backwards horror of the harsh landscape of Arkanar. Rumata, whose roll is akin to "The Stranger" (The Marquis de Custine) in Sokurov's kinetic guide of The Winter Palace in Russian Ark. From start to finish faces crowd every inch of the frame (no inch wasted), all made to look like one long tracking shot. The medieval, troglodyte acting folk jump from every angle, with a whirling pan ever so often to further escalate the intentionally destabilizing experience of a world we cannot understand. Hell, the people of Arkanar cannot understand. The film is difficult to say the least; the plot isn't exactly clear and the texture of the film is grimy. Extreme foreground is used to perfection by German, as the world is in the viewer's face. Everything this nasty world has to offer: blood, s**t, p**s, mud, etc. splatters onto the lens, bringing the audience wholly into the arcane, archaic world of this Russian fever dream. So if it is coherent narrative you want, look elsewhere, because this is not German's desire. In this world that closely resembles a superstitious Earth dug deep in the mire of the Middle Ages, German attempts and accomplishes is goal of presenting a world in all of it's squalor, chaos and unashamed violence. In all of this chaos German manages to keep it reigned in as it trudges along in a nearly constant rain and barrage of snot-rockets with a kind of POV shot that always manages to wrangle in the visual sense of the film back to stability (stability for this film).The expressionist, carnivalesque, cavalcade of a film was an amazing surprise for me. While it is a technical feast for the eyes and divisive in how it gets the adrenaline pumping, the film does manage to stimulate the mind…even as our scientific, man of intellect, Rumata, slowly diminishes from drink further into an animalistic state. There are many points of interest and value that the film presents: What is the true nature of God? "HTBAG" also examines the importance of technological advances and the priceless value of intellectual endeavors and how hard these motivations are to accomplish in the muck and mire of adversity. The parallels could be drawn to Soviet Russia in the 20th century or even modern Russia under Putin…but I will leave that for someone more knowledgeable to tackle. Whichever way you choose to slice it, man or celestial, it is hard to be god.

Granted, i watched this in 15 minute installments on Netflix so that i could get through it, so i'll already admit that IF i'd been stuck in an art house for the entire 3 hours this takes to run, it WOULD have affected me (for better or worse) more intensely. That having been said, the "Bring Out Yer Dead" sequence in MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL accomplishes EVERYTHING this behemoth attempts, and does so in about 5 minutes. And in a FAR MORE clear and compelling manner, to boot! So, just go watch MP&HG again--it's one of the BEST sword & sorcery flix EVER MADE. Also, Herzog's HEART OF GLASS is ANOTHER movie from the 70's that does EXACTLY what H2BaG is attempting, and in glorious color, as well.

Take the worst aspects of the dark ages and ostensibly reset all the phlegm, muck, and mud (I'm sorry, but even the middle ages must have had a few sunny days) to an "alien" world in the name of a soggy "Heart of Darkness" metaphor, and the result is the unwatchable "Hard to be a God." Nearly plot less and as pleasant to watch as a boil lancing, this film which nearly wasn't made, shouldn't have been. If watching actors (and I use the term loosely, the director seems to have cast with a sideshow mentality) snort feces and propel snot is your ideal way to spend three hours, feast away from the trough. You be richly rewarded in that direction. "Hard to be a God" is in the worst tradition the grotesqueries of the muck-and-mire school of eastern European art films. These directors and filmmaker bludgeon you with their hyped- up "realism," sparing no expense or lack of taste, to portray the lowly ground man has trod over the ages. Always set-decorated, costumed, and performed so verily over-the-top, these films wind up feeling so overtly phony in their "truth," they like marionette shows in an outhouse. Yes, they frequently achieve authentic repulsiveness -- and but that is a questionable achievement from the standpoint of a viewers force to chug the slime. Setting an excruciatingly high watermark for ugliness in the name of enlightening us to the beast within, "Hard to be God" achieves half it's goal: it's a truly repulsive film. There's none of the poetry or metaphor of even a patience-tester like "Salo" and the only thing cooked up from its cauldrons of phlegm and boot-scrapings of dung is an empty, and tasteless, serving of mud pie.

"Hard to be a God", is a production with quite an interesting back story. We'll get to that in a second, for now here is all you need to know should you want to endeavour its lengthy 3 hour running time. It is a hypnotising spectacle in terms of visuals and camera techniques, but the glaring absence of a decent plot structure will certainly be the big turn off for most people. Again as I found myself thoroughly absorbed with what I saw, lord knows how many times I came out of that trance when words were spoken, actions were taking place and very little consequences came from those results. It is a science fiction tale of no grand revelations, just brutal depictions of a violent time.The story comes from famed Sci-Fi authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Whose 1971 short story "Roadside Picnic", became the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 classic "Stalker"). Published in 1964, a group of scientists from earth in the future have travelled to a planet also inhabited by humans who have not progressed beyond the Middle Ages. Forbidden to interfere with the particularly bloody progress of the time, all Anton (Our main character) can do is bare witness to the state of horrors around him and hopefully not lose his values and reason in the process. Though the film adaptation is very well acted and every extra grabs your attention, unfortunately there is nothing of a stand out performance and no character has any depth whatsoever.While some of this remains in the adaptation, it is stretched extremely thin throughout all its 3 hours. I could easily say half the time is spent on the mannerisms of townsfolk, extreme depictions of violence, torture and thank god this film is in black and white because the amount of dirt, feces, organs, blood and unidentifiable sludge's make for one hell of a grizzly depiction. Unfortunately it is to be last for director Aleksei German, who passed in 2013. With the filming starting back in 2000 and embracing a lengthy on-off production, German's Wife and Son had to finish the final cuts a few months before the movies late 2013 premiere date (It has only just had an international release in 2015). I now wish to seek the previous work of the director, as the creative and lengthy shots in this movie are so well crafted. Picture the camera gliding through doorways, broken walls, dungeons, rain and mud soaked landscapes. It is reminiscent of any old Werner Herzog movie, and no way would you ever see any of this from a Hollywood production.Final Verdict: It is a very hit and miss work and guaranteed to divide people's opinions. I've heard readers of the novel have been less favourable towards it, and others have praised it rightly so as this rare breed, all most lost kind of film-making. I've been eager to see it, and it has satisfied my curiosity more than I thought and set in stone my ambition to read the book (Hopefully the narrative is way more forward). At three hours however, I would preferably recommend Andrei Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" (1966) for a strong depiction of 15th century Russia. Extremely rude of me to suggest another work in my final summary of a movie I'm critiquing, but do see this film as the effort is too jaw dropping to slip away and go unnoticed. 8/10. A stunning final work.