Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

jsteele-03992 This film had by far the greatest amount of liquids and combinations of liquids in the history of film. Blood combined with mud, blood with snot, snot with mud, vomit and spit, vomit and mud, blood and liquified rotting corpses, piss and pion, blood and feces all combine into a true elegy of combines liquids. Additionally, it features an extraordinary amount of faces. Extras constantly pass in front of the camera, and at least 1000 people get a close up, all with different, often disturbing faces, specifically ordered to perform as disgustingly as possibly, often projecting the aforementioned liquids, with a preference to snot. This manages to give an authentic feel to the medieval atmosphere of the film, with all the disturbing, disgusting and hard to watch elements completely intact. Unfortunately, the story is very hard to follow, since the random dialogue by extras, while cementing Hard to be a God as possibly the most realistic film about the Middle Ages ever, also distract the viewer from the actual story. Also, the sci-fi premise is thin and doesnt affect the story too much, while it does involve some interesting nihilistic philosophic themes.All in all, this film is not for you if you are a fan of sci-fi, color and interesting storytelling. However, it is really a technical marvel, with spectacular photography, costumes and set pieces, which manages to include the largest number of liquids and faces ever. If you are a face, liquid, or generally decadence enthusiast, you should watch this film as soon as possible.

popcorninhell Based on a novel by Arkadiy Strugatskiy, Hard to Be a God, is an incredibly radical sci-fi film that stretches the meaning of all possible descriptors. This film is not for contemporary popular audiences. This film's audience (if you could say it has one) are the squirrelly, anti-social filmophiles that are too deep down the rabbit hole to be brought back. They're the people who have spent half their lives in darkened rooms and use film as a reference point for life itself. In other words, it a movie just for me.Knowing Hard to Be a God's production history automatically creates a modicum of goodwill towards the film. Director Aleksey German shot the film over six years and took another seven years to edit it before succumbing to heart failure at the age of 73. Yet even before his last film, his career is littered with long-gestating movies that in some cases were put on hold for years due to Soviet censorship. While the USSR ultimately crumbled 27 years ago, German's insistence in making movies his way is still met with accusations of impenetrability and art cinema navel-gazing.Hard to Be a God's narrative is not a concern here but for the sake of cogency I'll summarize. Our protagonist Don Rumata (Yarmolnik) is a human, one of many living on another planet stuck in the middle ages. It's never made clear if he's there to help the planet's fledgling culture but what is clear is everyone seems to have a fundamental distrust of intellectuals and a hatred towards science. Perhaps because of this, Rumata has assimilated himself as a noble with God-like powers and thus is feared by all.These God-like powers by the way include having the ability to swat spears away from his face to the gasping amazement of dim-witted centuries. It appears that Rumata has given up on logic long ago choosing instead to abuse his most loyal subjects in an attempt to make them understands the basic truths about germs, economics and whether or not fish like milk. Yet to designate Rumata a classic anti-hero would be far too simplistic. He, like the rest of the idiots populating the screen is wholly unlikable but in a drastically different way.Hard to Be a God, to put it succinctly is two parts Andrei Tarkovsky, one part Terry Gilliam and a tiny bit of Idiocracy (2006); though summarizing German's mis en scene through text is completely impossible. His images are so textured, so grotesque and so bizarre that it is unlike anything I have ever seen let alone anything I can describe. World-building seems to be German's biggest strength. We not only see the chaos happening around the characters, we feel the coarse mud, smell the putrid bile and rotting corpses and taste the blood and sinew on the half cooked chicken they consume.If one were to point to a glaring problem with the film it's that at nearly three hours, the film is simply too long to endure more than once. Scenes of little consequence could have easily been cut to make way for a tighter story and an ending that sticks the landing with devastating aplomb. However, say what you will about the film's leisurely pace, the constant injection of intense medieval grotesqueness supplies the film's audience with enough imagery to fill several nightmares.While illustrating the problems of a faraway planet, Hard to Be a God is a damning condemnation of humanities struggle with its own ignorance. While certainly not for everyone, the film's warped, layered and visceral vision of medieval life is rivaled only by Marketa Lazarova (1967). Hard to Be a God is a must-watch contemporary classic whose reputation will only grow in the years to come. If you're on its wavelength, I recommend you check it out.

Joseph Biddle I can honestly say I've never seen another film like this one, which is both a compliment and a warning. The cinematography immediately caught my eye, and held its grip throughout the three hour run-time. The visuals were disgusting, hypnotic, boring, and suspenseful in equal measure. My engagement would've waned early if not for how it was filmed, with the camera becoming as important a character as those it presents. Peasants gawk at the lens, chickens and owls fly into view from behind our view, and various cages, chains, veils, and hung corpses occupy the forefront while the actors talk in the background. It's authenticity is palpable. You really feel like you're hopelessly trapped in the Middle Ages. The visuals hold the film together where the story falters. Congrats if you can follow what's going on, but I suspect it's meant to be a fever dream of weighty conversations, crass segues, and maudlin atmosphere. An interesting watch to be sure, but not nearly as powerful as it was clearly going for. If you're already a fan of experimental cinema, give it a try. Casual movie watchers won't get through 30 minutes.

Alessandro Vincinni Don't believe those who compare it to Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev". The only thing common between the two is black and white film and long 3 hour duration. This one is just a depiction of a (mainly) studio set full of mud and ... This has nothing to do with the book, has no meaningful plot or character development. If you are in for serious cinema avoid this "production". If you want to see something revolting, boring and repetitive go for it. The only thing this film shows is that a director who in past produced strong films like "Trial on the Road" can completely disintegrate at the end of his carrier. A sad story. This failure spoils the good impression of German's previous films as well as is a shame for the excellent novel who's title and popularity it tries to exploit.