Russian Ark

"One of the most astonishing films ever made."--Roger Ebert, Chicago Tribune Director Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark is literally without precedent in film history. In a single shot lasting 96 minutes, Sokurov moves through 33 rooms and around mid-winter exteriors of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg in Russia, one of the world's largest museums.

Accompanying this--the longest Steadicam shot in history--is an ongoing conversation between a contemporary off-screen narrator and an on-screen 19th-century French aristocrat. The two of them traverse centuries of czarist Russia as they move through the museum, encountering more than 2,000 costumed actors and extras, a full symphony orchestra, and, climactically, a stunning recreation of the Hermitage's last royal ball in 1913.

As the Village Voice notes, it's "a dazzling dance to the music of time." (96 mins.)