Russian Ark

I'm not sure what to say about Russian Ark, mainly because I don't think I really understood it. I had a hard time distinguishing the different time periods. I couldn't really make sense of some of the rooms - sometimes it felt like he was just walking through a museum commenting on random pictures and talking to random people.

This film is very different from the montage technique we are used to seeing. This is probably the first film I've seen that is done entirely in one shot, which must have been difficult to accomplish. One major difference is that we see everything in real time. Instead of using a montage technique to show Marquis de Custine's (and the narrator's) journey through the museum, we actually follow him as he walks through it.

I would say that the atmosphere changes with each room the narrator enters. Some rooms are full of visitors all talking about the art work, other rooms only have a couple people in them. Towards the beginning, the narrator looks in a room as sees a man being abused, and in another room a man is building his own coffin. But at the end of the film there is a ball, and everyone is dancing and having a good time. There is a definite difference in the atmosphere from room to room.