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Hard to Be a God Movie Review

Hard to Be a God is a 2013 Russian science fiction film directed by Aleksei German and starring Leonid Yarmolnik. It’s a movie that is certainly not for everybody.

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“If I could imagine myself as God,

I’d become him!“

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Scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to help a medieval civilization and to rescue intellectuals. The premise here was so promising and coupled with amazing reviews and you’ve got a film that I was really looking forward to seeing. Unfortunately, it ended up disappointing me as the movie is far from a SF classic it was said to be.

While the message is obvious here – progress in arts and sciences is essential for any civilization that strives for betterment – the overall execution of this theme was very repetitious and dull. The film is actually rather simple in that it doesn’t have anything more to say about the Middle Ages. It just presents this time period in all of its filth and infamy, and thus it becomes rather repetitive in the same type of imagery repeated throughout.

I found the emphasis on gore, violence and bodily fluids very excessive. It was realistic undoubtedly, but it was still too much. The movie is overly dreadful in its violence, and although it can be respected for having no boundaries, I wanted additional themes to go with all of this gore.

Hard to Be a God is undeniably a fantastic piece of filmmaking art. Although I am not a fan of it overall, I did appreciate its artistic merits as they are present in spades. The cinematography is amazing – the black-and-white photography is stunning, the imagery is frequently quite artistic and the camera movements are polished. The score is also good, the direction from Aleksei German is great and the acting is strong across the board.

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But the character development left a lot to be desired. Only Don Rumata is at least memorable while others should have been better realized. I liked his arc quite a bit and that God or not narrative was very well crafted. However, the movie’s refusal to really include legitimate science fiction elements left it feeling just like a period piece, which was a letdown for me.

Although the artistic merits of Hard to Be a God are unquestionable, the movie is otherwise a letdown. The cinematography is striking, the direction is good and the movie felt grandiose, but it also felt very repetitive in its plot fueled by violence and gore while thematically speaking and in SF elements it was lacking, thus resembling a period piece above all else.

My Rating – 3