Aleksey German's three hour long movie adaption of the book " entitled "It's Hard to be a God" is one of the most impressive sensory overloading films i've ever seen.From the grotesque and impressive cinematography, to the deep disparaging narrative, German's movie is an immersive film that will absolutely leave a lasting impression.
The film takes place in the future on an alien planet similar to earth, except that the human society has not progressed past the dark ages due to its dislike of "wiseguys" or smart or artistic people. The films follows Don Rumata, a scientist from earth who rules a castle as a god king. His mission on the planet is to give the local populaces wiseguy's wisdom to help the society progress out of the dark ages. His mission is constantly being thwarted by the society's brutally punishing anti-intelligence mentality.
The impressiveness of the film comes from its cinematographers beautiful combination of extremely long tracking shots and highly intricate, multi level choreographies which are shot in gritty black and white. The films aesthetic may best be described as a fight between two wooden buckets of mud in the rain due in part to the characters constant spitting and fighting in the filthy medieval world.
The plot follows Don Rumata's quest to retrieve a fellow scientist named Budah from Don Reba. He succeeds, however his archers kill Don reba which causes an attack on Don Rumatas castle. Don rumata wins the battle, but his lover is killed in the process. Rumata gets angry because of this and breaks his scientific vows not to kill people which ends up leading to a massive slaughter.
German paints a very bleak outlook of the society and its inability to change which was exemplified at one point when, Don Rumata says that it is impossible to change anything here as he cuts the chains of a slave, only to have the slave run for two seconds before dieing. Although "Its Hard to be a God" is Germains first film that doesn't deal directly with soviet russia, its hard not to see the similarities with the blind unquestioning unity of the people, the poverty ridden town, the harsh punishments for trivial crimes, and the incompetent ruling class. It ends with don rumata leaving the town with his band of survivors in the snow as he plays his saxaphone esque instrument (an invention of the future no doubt). as he plays, they pass by a father and son walking where the father asks the son if he likes the music, to which the son replies, no it hurts my head witch ends the movie on a bleak note that implies that no matter how long or how good a ruler rules, nothing will ever change by him alone.
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