Hard to Be a God

“Beautiful, brilliant…message from another time.”—Cinema Scope

When legendary Russian director Aleksei German died in 2013, he left behind this extraordinary final film which critics have been calling a “masterpiece” (Village Voice). A phantasmagoric adaptation of the revered sci-fi novel by the Strugatsky brothers (who penned the source novel for Andrei 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. Taking place on the planet Arkanar, which is stuck in their version of the Middle Ages, the film focuses on Don Rumata, one of a group of scientists from Earth who have been sent there with the proviso that they must not interfere in the planet’s political or historical development. Treated by Arkanar’s natives as a kind of divinity, Don Rumata is both godlike and impotent in the face of the chaos and brutality around him. (170 mins., DCP)