Form and Content
Hard To Be A God – (2013) - Dir Aleksei German
Hard to be a God is a modern masterpiece. The film is an immersive and visceral experience unlike any other in the history of film. The film bombards the viewer with a grotesque phantasmagoria. Images of filth, violence, depravity and gore burst from the screen, characters eject phlegm from their noses, shit through windows, look at the camera and grin inanely, show their bottoms and scoop excrement the anus of a dead body. What the film represents is an evocation of an amoral world. This is a medieval world, very much like our own a world where the renaissance has been halted in its tracks and a mindless barbarity, the ‘leviathan’ of Hobbes seminal work has been unleashed and runs rampant over the planet of Arkanar. Could this have happened on Earth? Is it possible that here on Earth at a time when we feel science is respected, human life is precious and art is appreciated that Earth might have been ruled by barbarians. Well in truth Earth is not ruled by reason. Most of the world does not respect human life, art or science. Hard to be a God says to us that Arkanar IS our world past and present.
A dazzling technical achievement the film hums with creativity and skill. The plot is revealed to us through the filth and gore, we glimpse at it through the hedgehogs, shit, chickens legs and excrement and snatches of dialogue and slowly we understand what is happening. As we peer through the images thrown at us we glimpse at the narrative. To convey his message Aleksei German forgoes the trapping of any formal staging and blocking and instead creates a true sense of chaos, exquisite in its skill and energy. Traditionally films invest meaning in movement and blocking, camera placement and lighting, but Aleksei German throws that out the window and coveys a pure sense of chaos and disorder, so many objects, incidents, props and sounds are thrown at us so randomly that we are unable to interpret their meaning, therefore the lack of meaning becomes meaning. This is not staged chaos, or organised chaos but real chaos. Chaos becomes the films form. Therein lies the meaning. Arkanar IS our world or may as well be. Our lives lack structure. The incidents of our lives are not staged or perfectly framed and we are helpless in the chaos of incident and contingency. Hard to be a God shows us a true simulacrum of our world as does Khrustalyov, My Car! Alexsei German’s only other film to have been noticed internationally. There, the allusion to the “Leviathan” of Stalinist Russia is more explicit. Khrustalyov, My Car! is also a masterpiece.
German’s films are rich with detail, intense in imagery, beguiling in their technique and skill and a thumb in the nose to prestige cinema and to formal ideas of staging and framing. Though disgusting, Hard To Be A God is also one of the most beautiful films ever made, the lighting and staging is so magnificently chaotic that it can appear to the undiscerning viewer as an accident. The films lack of formal structure and evocation of chaos extends to the camera even breaking the forth wall. Frequently the extras stare mesmerised at the lens or the camera bumps objects and jars against tables or actors. The lengthy takes, camera movements and the use of foreground and background character and prop placement imply an expansive world beyond the frame in a way that few films ever have. Aleksei German is the lesser-known genius of Russian cinema and one of the greatest directors of all time.
