Review of Russian Ark (2002) by Ryan P — 25 Feb 2013
Visually, second to none. The film is shot in one take and as unexciting as it sounds, it's quite well done. The plot is thin, at best and the sound design is muddled and messy until the final scene.
The downfall of the film as well as its success is that it's shot in one take, which means certain scenes are overexposed and others are too dark to see anything, due to the fact that changing exposures during the same shot is quite messy and nearly unforgiveable.
Zoom lense is employed throughout and seems to only serve the purpose of getting the framing correct in certain scenes until the operator can catch up with the action. This, in turn, also looks sloppy and degrades the quality of the film.
Overall, an interesting film, but I'd struggle to be able to watch it again because the sound design is some of the worst I've ever heard.
This review of Russian Ark (2002) was written by Ryan P on 25 Feb 2013.
Russian Ark has generally received very positive reviews.
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