Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

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

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

anthonydavis26 This review was made following a screening at Cambridge Film Festival (September 2011): This documentary's content left me feeling that, despite talking about Stalin's propaganda, it was a sort of propaganda in itself, very much in the style of Schindler's List. A polarisation of that kind must tend to mask the true picture.The film told how Savitsky worked on his paintings during breaks from archaeological digs, but it was far from clear how a more eminent painter's demolition of these works left him with still the confidence to judge merit in the art world, and so begin collecting what he thought worthwhile, whereas he had believed the criticism and destroyed his own art.I am afraid that I just do not buy this idea that there were any clear rights or wrongs in all this. We were told that one artist was denounced by another, and that this was not known to his own sons until they were shot on camera reacting to (what were said to be) official files in which, in transcripts of interviews, he identified that artist's anti-Soviet attitudes.Yet the sons somehow participated until that point without any knowledge of their father's trying to save his skin by 'co-operating' in this way (ultimately unsuccessfully, since he was denounced in his turn). (He had represented those working on projects such as irrigation channels, in which there would inevitably have been forced labour and a death-toll, as Soviet ideals, but the images were turned against him as uglifying USSR's citizens.) Other things just did not ring true: the whole way in which Savitsky was supposed to have used influence to get funding both to establish his museum and pay for exhibits for it made no sense, and was utterly implausible; likewise, his collecting works and taking them (and how he took them) to Nukus without any official troubling about it; and, for me, the entire hagiography surrounding him, his life and death, which the glowingly anti-USSR US journalist seemed to want to accept for the wrong reasons.In addition, that speaker seemed to have no notion that it was hypocritical in the extreme to blame a Soviet regime for ruining the Aral Sea's ecology, as if his country's energy policy is blameless, and such willingness to believe a black-and-white picture seemed naive. In that vein, we were told, without explanation, that a female artist's work depicting Soviet labour camps had not only survived unscathed, but asked to credit that Savitsky had cleverly passed it off as depicting Nazi camps.A minor irritation was also not easily working out who was who - some speakers were introduced, but only identified, and to be told that someone on screen was the artist X's son when it was not clear who X was also didn't help. In addition, to have the two sons talking about what Savitsky did in relation to the artists (or relatives from whom he acquired works) just reinforced one's uncertainty as to both how they would have known this, and whether, at any given time, they had started talking about their artist father or Savitsky.

bpg39 This is an amazing film about hidden treasure that is so vulnerable. I hope that something can be done to save this art and bring it to the world. The paintings are so vivid; I will never forget them.I went to the website: "desertofforbiddenart.com" and immediately made a contribution to the book of paintings being planned. It is ironic, that after so many years of hiding the works from Stalin, it is now, in the twenty-first century, that the paintings are in the most danger.But it is not only viewing the paintings that made such an impression on me, but the stories of the forgotten artists. The world should know who they were, and the incredible sacrifices they made to be painters.

Norman Mark A memorable documentary, an incredible story of how 44,000 unknown works of art came to be in a museum in Upper Uzbekistan, a film that combines elements of a spy story, fascinating history, dangerous quests and a fear of the future. Absolutely stunning. What is not in the film is that this collection is located in a secret, off-the-maps city where Soviets experimented with gas, germ and nuclear warfare, and that is another reason why the outside world does not know about the city or the museum that is in it. I will never forget the images of the art in this film, paintings equal to or better than those of Impressionists seen in books and other museums. And remember: only 400 of the 44,000 paintings have ever been photographed. Most have never been catalogued!!As a movie reviewer and concerned citizen, I have been recommending this marvelous film to everyone interested in humanity, art, and history. Four stars!!!! SEE IT, SUPPORT IT, HELP SAVE THIS UNKNOWN AND IMPORTANT ART FROM POSSIBLE DESTRUCTION BY RADICAL MUSLIMS, WHO SURROUND IT.

ratcityfilmsociety In a remote region of a remote Soviet republic there once lived Igor Savitsky, a museum curator. If his profession had saints he would be among the most revered. In his half century career he filled his museum with art that was often (literally) on the verge of disappearing onto the dust heap of history. Not only did he acquire these works of art; he paid for them, with state allocated funds. A true "holy fool" for art, he relentlessly sought pieces for his museum up to the time of his death, with almost no government interference. Savitsky's story is enough, but the film also examines the lives and work of some of the artists who owed their artistic existence and legacy to this amazing man. It is a well structured and remarkably apolitical documentary, utilizing some of the great living narrators in contemporary English language film. The love for art has rarely been so well represented in a documentary, not to mention that the actual works of art are absolutely stunning.