Russian Ark should probably be re-titled Aleksandr and Sergei's Excellent Adventure.  It's about two guys who, presumably by enchanted phone booth, hurtle through time and end up learning a thing or two about history in the process.  Whoa, dude!  Now, before you go dropping your hookah and racing down to the theatre, you should know the film is in Russian (subtitled, of course) and focuses on three centuries of turbulent Russian history, from Peter the Great through Nicholas II (and the Great Royal Ball of 1913, on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution).

The catch here – and, honestly, the only reason non-Russians might be clamoring to see it – is that Ark contains the longest unbroken shot in film history.  Actually, it doesn't simply contain it; the shot is the entire movie.  It's a 93-minute continuous take that swoops through thousands of extras populating the various sections of The Hermitage in St. Petersburg like it was the corridors of ER or The West Wing.  From the dazzling opening shots of Touch of Evil and Boogie Nights (and maybe even Snake Eyes), to the uncut, non-chronological chapters of Irreversible, this kind of thing has always made me damp with excitement.  That said, Ark would have bored the daylights out of me if it weren't for the technical tomfoolery.

Ark starts with a black screen and a narrator talking about some kind of accident before he opens his eyes and finds himself teleported back in time from present day to the 18th century.  We see everything from his point of view but nobody can see him, except for a 19th century marquis (Sergei Dreiden) who also seems to have just arrived in St. Petersburg.  Sometimes people can see the snooty marquis, and sometimes they can't.  Also, he's able to speak Russian without ever having learned it, but that doesn't stop him from constantly putting down Russian art and culture every chance he gets.

What follows is a crash course in both art and Russian history, assuming you can actually pay attention to anything but the grand, sweeping scope of the brazen technical gimmick (or the scene where Catherine the Great is trying to find somewhere to take a leak).  Anyone not immediately attracted to the idea of either of those things should probably stay far, far away from this one.  Director Aleksandr Sokurov (who provides the voice of the unseen character) and German cinematographer Tilman Büttner (the steadicam operator for Run Lola Run) rehearsed Ark for seven months before shooting it with a souped-up high definition digital video camera with a monster hard drive.  The finished film was the third take, though; as the museum was only available for one day, all three were done back-to-back-to-back.  No pressure in screwing anything up there...

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