Well, it got here yesterday and I watched it and the making off it and that other strange thing about the three people who work in the Hermitage and the young boy who takes art lessons there.
The film itself is visually beautiful, but while reading the English subtitles, I lost a lot of the visual stuff.
The trip through the art gallery was too long and boring. I wanted to get past the Frenchman's dislike of all things Russian and on to looking at the whole Hermitage.
I think that the director did keep most of the film in chronological order. Peter II and his son Alexis. Catherine II. (But why we had to know that someone needed to take a "piss" (as they said) is beyond me. (Sounds like my son when he was in Middle School and the usual bathroom humor).
Nicholas I. References to the fire. The short trips to the 1940s and to the present. Nicholas II and his family at tea. (Although I didn't think that they lived at the Winter Palace much when the children were that old. And I doubt that Alexandra went to tea with her family in fur and a tiara.)
I did notice GD Elizabeth wandering through the gallery toward the beginning of the art gallery sequence and of course she was walking with Alix on the way to the tea scene.
I know that the film was restricted to 90 minutes, but the director missed Alexander II and Alexander III when he moved from Nicholas I to Nicholas II. And the reference was to 300 years of history, but the Winter Palace was began in 1754, and even if we include the 1940s shots that is only 191 years.
And of course the "last ball". Which was a visual treat and a musical treat. The whole soundtrack was beautiful and I now want to hear more Glinka.
I am with Robert - the making of part was worth the investment. The idea that the whole thing was shot with out cutting is amazing.
Perhaps if I watch it again without reading the subtitles and truly looking around, I will enjoy it more.
