I just watched it last night. I thought it was a pretty incredible film conceptually and visually.
I can also understand its purchase in the West, as I feel like it glorifies pre-USSR imperial Russia, and there are only thin references to anything in the 20th century (the most notable and darkly trippy of these being the soldier digging his own grave during the siege of Leningrad).
I liked it!
Technically the first one that I ever saw in terms of Russian film.
It's... honestly better than most Hollywood films, as trite as that sounds. Believe me, I wasn't expecting much, but I... oddly liked it. It was something different and I liked it a lot.
Russia ark's premise is based on a book of a travel trip done by a Frenchman (a politician iirc) during imperial Russia. The conclusion of the book is that Russia is not an European country, but an asiatic country because its culture is too backward and all they do is to copy European culture.
You can kind of see it when the European in the movie walks around the hermitage, looking at the painting dismissively and mocking the Russian intelligentsia who tries to defend some of the painting. At the end of the movie the European finally recognizes Russia as an Equal to Europeans.
The movie is directed by some russian director in 2002 which does reflect the Russian attitude post 2001 where they kind of wanted to be part of the West and strip of its ''Asiatic'' roots. TBH this is just the attitudes of Russian Region west of the Ural which perceives the East of Ural and the Central Asia region as backward non European which is ironic consider this is where the natural resources are and the near future for the country kind of depend on the development of the East of Russia
Probably the most dream-like movie I ever watched. The way everything flows together, the timeline jumping around to various scenes with no acknowledgement that anything's out of the ordinary, and the hazy plot thread all make it very hypnotic. However, unlike my dreams, I had access to my upper faculties, so I was mostly bored out of my wits watching it.
