Staggeringly ambitious and technically spellbinding, Alexander Sokurov’s 2002 film is a miracle of cinematography. It is a dreamlike journey through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum on one entirely unedited take, recreating 300 years of Russian culture and history in its vast labyrinth of corridors, theatres and ballrooms, and the first film to ever be recorded on uncompressed High Definition.

In this introduction to the film Professor Ian Christie, Birkbeck College, explores director Sokurov's vision for the film and the historical context for his filmmaking. The film is set in the Hermitage Museum of Art and Culture in St Petersburg - one of the oldest and largest repositories on Western Art in the world. Professor Christie proposes that through this setting Sokurov's film embodies the Russian Idea - Russia as the saviour, looking after the legacy of the Renaissance and everything we call western art and civislation, and acts as an affirmation of the continuity of Russian history.

These ideas and the engrossing visual and narrative presentation of the film are why Mark Cosgrove, Watershed's Head of Programme and Ian Christie chose Russian Ark as the film of 2002 which stands out as in some way redefining the second century of cinema.

Ian Christie is a British film scholar and author who is Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London. Ian has written a number of books and studies, and is a regular contributor to Sight and Sound magazine.

Posted on Sun 25 April 2010.

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