aesthetic, and its own values (or lack thereof). You may not feel that Aleksei German had any right to do such a thing to you, but his achievement in this, his last film, is undeniable, if difficult to articulate. The film is based on the povest' [long- form story] by the Strugatskii Brothers, Arkadii and Boris, the famous and beloved Soviet science-fiction writers. German had been their choice to direct any film version of the story since shortly after its publication in 1964. The Hard to Be a God story was much darker than earlier works by the [Трудно быть богом] popular writers, and neither the general atmosphere nor the basic plot of the film Russia, 2013 deviates far from the literary text. But despite Black and white, 177 minutes the help of an off-screen narrator, the plot of the Russian with English subtitles film is almost impossible to follow for viewers Director: Aleksei German not familiar with the story, thus a brief summary Screenplay: Svetlana Karmalita and Aleksei is necessary. German, based on a story by Boris and In the Strugatskii text, an expedition Arkadii Strugatskii from 22nd-century Earth visits a planet with a Camera: Vladimir Il'in and Iurii Klimenko civilization in the medieval stage of Art Direction: Sergei Kokovkin, Georgii development. Their mission is to observe and to Kropachev, Elena Zhukova ascertain the possibility of aiding extraterrestrial Music: Viktor Lebedev civilizations in their development toward the Sound: Nikolai Astakhov enlightened form of social organization enjoyed Cast: Leonid Iarmol'nik, Iurii Tsurilo, by the denizens of Earth. In the spirit of Natal'ia Moteva, Aleksandr Chutko, terrestrial anthropologists, the Earth scientists Evgenii Gerchakov, Petr Merkur'ev embed themselves in the unenlightened world, Producers: Rushan Nasibulin, Viktor particularly in the Kingdom of Arkanar, where Izvekov the bulk of the action takes place. This Production: Studio “Sever” and Telekanal Kingdom had begun to see the development of “Rossiia 1” what humanity would recognize as high culture: Awards: White Elephant from the Guild of art, poetry, scientific knowledge, and Cinema Scholars and Critics for “Event of the rudimentary technology (printing, optical Year,” for Cinematography, and for Design; lenses). In this context, an ambitious security NIKA awards for Best Film and Best Director official named Don Reba (Rebia in the (and in five other categories) Strugatskiis’ early drafts) begins a campaign of terror and violence against this culture, rounding To start with the bad news—if you are up and executing any individuals practicing or about to watch Hard to Be a God for the first spreading intellectual and artistic creativity. The time, prepare to experience a film that continues protagonist, living under his local identity as along the aesthetic trajectory established by the Don Rumata, has been trying to rescue as many director in such earlier films as My Friend Ivan individuals as he can, removing them from Lapshin and Khrustalev, My Car!: from Arkanar to a refuge where they can survive as annoying distraction, through disgust and exiles. By the time of the main action, Don revulsion, to an overwhelming total sensory Reba has established a military force, the experience that mimics psychotic breakdown. “Grays,” with which to enforce a new Dark Age Although the experience will not be pleasant, of conformity and ignorance. Living within and you will see a vivid example of how a supremely under the relentless brutality of this reality, Don talented filmmaker plays God, creating an Rumata ultimately despairs of ever leading this alternate reality with its own laws, its own society to a better future. Abandoning his earlier faith and belief in the laws of social progress, he genuine achievement, but in support of both becomes involved in a violent struggle against German and his film, it can be said that he has the regime and violates the explorers’ taken a typically 20th-century work of science- prohibition against the taking of human life. fiction and produced out of it what, if we are Although the basic plot of the sci-fi very unlucky, might yet prove to be a definitive story remains unchanged, the film has absolutely film of the 21st century. The Brothers no formal or thematic attributes of the science- Strugatskii deliberately made their story into an fiction genre. At the level of emotional allegory for the horrors of Fascist Germany experience, German forces the viewer to forget (most obviously) and Stalinist Terror (only the basic fact that the protagonist and his somewhat less obviously, in the spirit of the compatriots came to this world by choice and, Khrushchev Thaw). German’s cinematic house presumably, could leave it at any time. This of horrors effects in the experience of the viewer psychological state of freedom is replaced in the an almost complete shutdown of the rational film by an alternative state of being that goes capacity for reflection or sense-making. Is this beyond claustrophobia, beyond pessimism, not what the “Grays” attempt within the beyond even the most profound hopelessness, storyline of the film? The manifestations of this which after all cannot exist without at least the dystopian world can take many, seemingly memory of past hopefulness. Formally, the film contradictory forms—from the desecration of features many of the devices familiar to the religious shrines to the wholesale director’s admirers and detractors alike: a delegitimization of scientific method, from the disorienting, radically unfiltered audio track that rise of fanatical religious sects to the loss of all captures nonsense in such quantity as to spirituality in digitally fashioned identities. If it overwhelm sense; a camera eye that is is hard to be a god (or God), it is also getting constantly blocked by random objects and ever harder to be a human. bodies intruding upon the viewer’s perception of the main action; an assortment of various bodily Gerald McCausland fluids oozing into the field of view through orifices both natural and violently man-made. Aleksei German was born in Leningrad in More peculiar to this film is the 1938, the son of Soviet writer Iurii German. He ubiquitous presence of petty violence—people in worked in the theater prior to 1964 when he this world seem incapable of communicating joined Lenfilm Studio. In 1990, within Lenfilm, anything without tweaking noses, boxing ears, he established and led the Studio for First and chopping off pieces of flesh, crushing limbs, all Experimental Films. Whether due to censorship for no particular reason. Finally, a fascination or to the director’s uncompromising artistic with odors and excrement manifests itself in the ambition, many of German’s films were released compulsive need to probe the most disgusting only many years after work on them began. By puddle, hole, or bodily cavity with one’s finger the time of his death in 2013 during lengthy and then immediately lift it to (usually, one’s post-production work on his final film, German own) nose to have a sniff. The viewer is was almost universally acknowledged as one of assaulted on all sensory sides and cannot even the most significant directors in Russian cinema choose not to imagine the olfactory qualities of of the post-war period. the world presented on screen. It hardly needs to be added that German’s dark film does not Filmography: offer any relief in the form of a positive hero or 2013 Hard to Be a God a redemptive message. It does make it easy for 1998 Khrustalev, My Car! us to supply the details that precede the action of 1984 My Friend Ivan Lapshin the film, the details of how the protagonist, Don 1976 Twenty Days Without War Rumata, has already lost all of his optimism and 1971 Trial on the Road belief in progress in the opening shots of the 1967 The Seventh Companion (with Grigorii film. Aronov) An achievement in cruelty (toward his viewers, his actors, and his protagonist) is also a .