Hard To Be A God

This is not an easy film too watch, and its running time of nearly three hours will leave you drained and bewildered. That said, Aleksei German’s ‘Dark Ages Sci-fi’ is as unique as it is bizarre, beautiful to look at in all its mud-drenched ugliness, and above all clever in its attempt of juxtaposing fantasy and science fiction with the all to real human condition.

The central plot (if one can talk about a plot at all) centres around scientist/astronaut Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) who ends up on a distant planet called Arkanar… a place where it never stops raining and where society still seems to live in the Dark Ages. As we find out through a brief narrative, Arkanar is 800 years behind civilisation from Rumata’s planet Earth. Quite why he comes to Arkanar is never explained, nor is it explained as to why he decides to ‘play God’ – that is to say inviting the people of Arkanar to step into the age of enlightenment – hypothetically speaking.

As we follow Rumata as he aimlessly wanders along the muddy streets of the village we meet the inhabitants of this strange world: grotesque, primitive, occasionally disfigured peasants covered in their own filth, sores, blood, and what have you. Amongst them is peasant girl Ari (Natalya Moteva) who utters the most comprehensible dialogue.
It is a world that evokes visions of Rabelais’ novels and the bizarre and distorted world of Bosch and Brughel’s paintings! Arkanar is a truly nightmarish place where people laugh at their own madness and their maddening existence. It is also a place where two feuding factions called ‘Greys’ and the ‘Blacks’ spread their tyrannical wings across the village – brutally torturing and killing anyone daring to think or intellectually progress in any way, may it be artistically, intellectually or philosophically.

Only Rumata has cart blanche, for the villagers and even the tyrannical upper hand treat him as a nobleman… due to his claim that he is the descendant of a pagan god.
As he tries to secretly lead the artistically and intellectually inclined out of the village and into safety, he must question his own reasoning and sanity.

Hard To Be A God is a visual tour de force in which powerful imagery plays the dominant factor and pictures express more than words. One really gets sense of actually being there and wade amidst the mud and excrement, and the villagers who behave primeval.
Of course, parallels can be drawn between this cinematic world and the on-going censorship in Russia – not only during the time the novel was written but to this day.

Legendary Russian Sci-fi authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky wrote the source novel in 1964, and by adapting it a dream came through for director Aleksei German. It would take six years of shooting this b/w epic, a further six years of post-production and a posthumous premiere before his masterpiece was finally unveiled.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

* High Definition (1080p) presentation
* Original Russian soundtrack
* Optional English subtitles
* Exclusive interview with Aleksei German Jr, who completed his father’s film after his death
* Interview with co-screenwriter Svetlana Karmalita, the director’s widow
* The History of the Arkanar Massacre, an appreciation of the film by Daniel Bird
* The Unknown Genius: Michael Brooke looks at Aleksei German’s creatively dazzling but politically hobbled career
* Imagery gallery
* Trailer
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Andrzej Klimowski