Aleksei German, Aleksei Guerman, Alesksei Gierman, Alexei German, Alexei Guerman, Alexei Gierman, etc.

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Has anyone seen any of the five films by this Russian director? One of them, My Friend Ivan Lapshin, routinely tops homegrown "best Russian film of all time" polls although it's scarcely known in the West. His 1998 film Khroustaliov, My Car! occasioned walkouts at the Cannes and New York film festivals. I saw it at Facets and was simultaneously impressed and aggravated. The mise en scene is so busy and the dialogue so thick, the dramatic cues so seldom, that I found the plot to be incomprehensible for the first hour or so. But I've never seen a film that looks like that. Fans of Bela Tarr or Fellini would no doubt have their heads blown.

Does anyone else know anything about this guy, or his most recent film, Hard to be a God (Trudno byt' bogom)?

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 14:40 (twenty years ago) link

er well so far i have been able to find out that its a) an adaptation of the Strugatskii brothers' book of the same name, and sticks fairly much to the plot of it B)the main character is played by Leonid Yarkmolnik ñ) most of it was shot nr prague
er thats it. so nothing. if you speak russian this article is quite good, frm what i can inderstand
from itogi

― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 12:44 (twenty years ago) link

Thanks for that info. I can't read Russian, alas.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 13:58 (twenty years ago) link

turns out the strugatskii brothers wrote 'roadside picnic' which tarkovsky made into 'stalker'. the strugatskiis said they were 'worried' that german was making the film. in an interview with him he started blaming the french who were making copies of the film or something. and sayiing that everyone walked out cos of the sound quality.

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 22 May 2003 07:50 (twenty years ago) link

Alexei Guerman is probably the only living Russian director to even come close to the likes of Fellini, Bunuel or any of the visionary master you could think of. His films are a must for true cinema fans and Khroustaliev-My Car! (although it requires substantial historical knowledge) is in fact a simple story that is very clearly told, but in the language of what cinema should be at the start of this century.
Since most westerners are basically dolts in terms of history, there´s no way the folks at Cannes or the NY film fest could decipher the film´s plot. Many of the things in the film that have been incorrectly called elements of "magic realism" or "grotesque" are in fact painfully realistic. Most of the surreal elements, like meeting a dead Stalin who can still fart out commands, have also been poorly interpreted by film journalists. Basically, the film´s a masterpiece still waiting for it´s time.

― günther black, Friday, 23 May 2003 22:46 (twenty years ago) link

eight months pass...

german has a new film out thursday

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 5 February 2004 13:44 (twenty years ago) link

that would be alexei guerman jr, his son

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 6 February 2004 08:02 (twenty years ago) link

nine years pass...

Dead at 74; last film in postproduction.

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/869985/soviet-dissident-director-aleksei-guerman-dies-last-movie

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 22 February 2013 05:31 (eleven years ago) link

Haven't seen the film, but really enjoyed reading the translated Hard To Be A God.

― dow, Friday, 22 February 2013 22:18 (eleven years ago) link

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-aleksei-german-1938-2013

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 2 March 2013 17:52 (eleven years ago) link

one year passes...

HtbaG finally opening in NYC Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84838260&v=11sMDQIgggA&x-yt-ts=1422327029

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 27 January 2015 15:33 (nine years ago) link

It's brilliant, but... don't expect much plot. Imagine the craziest bits of Aguirre, compressed, moved to another planet, and riffed on for 3 hours.

In any case, about a billion times better than the 1989 version.

― Dave fischer, Thursday, 29 January 2015 10:34 (nine years ago) link

Wrote this when I saw it back in april. Rereading, it's really not very good, but oh well. Was a good day, that one.

― Frederik B, Thursday, 29 January 2015 23:15 (nine years ago) link

While I liked the two previous features and this well enough, AG has never been quite my cup of tea. Having a cold and fighting off sleep during a Sat night screening, again not ideal (and so depressing to be sick and old). Anyway...

I guess the narrow range of incident in this film (eggs smashed, noses smashed, claustrophobic handheld, revolting Breughelian faces, mud, milk pouring, interrupted by a singular horse dick) just made everything feel cumulative, and steeped in stasis beyond the stony "non"-narrative feel? (Because there is a plot, and it does advance, it just isn't foregrounded in any usual way.) I thought the salient takeaway was posted by P Labuza on L'boxed:

Anyways, if you tell me where any of the crew of this movie was possibly standing at any moment, please do, because the effect of a 360 degree reality here is astonishing.

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 February 2015 17:43 (nine years ago) link

Trial on the Road is phenomenal...

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 11 February 2015 04:00 (nine years ago) link

two months pass...

Hard to Be A God is back at Anthology Film Archives in NYC today at 5

― Premise ridiculous. Who have two potato? (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 26 April 2015 14:58 (eight years ago) link

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