Perfect cast and a good story

hyped garbage

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Blood, sweat, s**t, p**s and muck, it could be argued, are five of the main characters in Aleksey German Sr.'s final ultra-visceral film; a passion project that nearly spanned a decade, with editing ending after his death. Hard to Be a God is a kaleidoscope sci-fi adapted from the novel of the same name. Penned by Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy who's other notable work, Stalker, was brought to film in 1979 by Russian film legend Andrei Tarkovsky. German's masterpiece is as visceral and striking as The Revenant or Mad Max: Fury Road, with every bit of the technical achievement. Imagine Russian Ark met up with Andrei Rublev tripping on acid (an overdose of acid) having some peach schnapps with a long, ominous tracking shot from a Bela Tarr film, and all this is sprinkled with every bit the humor and grotesqueness of the "Bring out your dead" scene from Monty Python's The Holy Grail…now you are at least in the ballpark of the wild ride that is Hard to Be a God.The film's premise is based around the idea that a group of scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to assist civilization—a Medieval civilization—find it's right path to progress (so certain press clippings say). But there are rules: they cannot interfere directly, violently and in no case kill the people of Arkanar, which is a "rule" that our protagonists takes lightly. Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolnik) is the physically imposing, gruff scientist who tries to save, or at the very least find local intellectuals or any beings with a semblance of advanced intellect…a tall task. Rumata is awakened and the film is off as if it was shot from a cannon and doesn't stop for nearly three hours, but in three hours there is no chance of your attention waning. The crisp black and white photography is beautiful and precisely juxtaposes the disgust and backwards horror of the harsh landscape of Arkanar. Rumata, whose roll is akin to "The Stranger" (The Marquis de Custine) in Sokurov's kinetic guide of The Winter Palace in Russian Ark. From start to finish faces crowd every inch of the frame (no inch wasted), all made to look like one long tracking shot. The medieval, troglodyte acting folk jump from every angle, with a whirling pan ever so often to further escalate the intentionally destabilizing experience of a world we cannot understand. Hell, the people of Arkanar cannot understand. The film is difficult to say the least; the plot isn't exactly clear and the texture of the film is grimy. Extreme foreground is used to perfection by German, as the world is in the viewer's face. Everything this nasty world has to offer: blood, s**t, p**s, mud, etc. splatters onto the lens, bringing the audience wholly into the arcane, archaic world of this Russian fever dream. So if it is coherent narrative you want, look elsewhere, because this is not German's desire. In this world that closely resembles a superstitious Earth dug deep in the mire of the Middle Ages, German attempts and accomplishes is goal of presenting a world in all of it's squalor, chaos and unashamed violence. In all of this chaos German manages to keep it reigned in as it trudges along in a nearly constant rain and barrage of snot-rockets with a kind of POV shot that always manages to wrangle in the visual sense of the film back to stability (stability for this film).The expressionist, carnivalesque, cavalcade of a film was an amazing surprise for me. While it is a technical feast for the eyes and divisive in how it gets the adrenaline pumping, the film does manage to stimulate the mind…even as our scientific, man of intellect, Rumata, slowly diminishes from drink further into an animalistic state. There are many points of interest and value that the film presents: What is the true nature of God? "HTBAG" also examines the importance of technological advances and the priceless value of intellectual endeavors and how hard these motivations are to accomplish in the muck and mire of adversity. The parallels could be drawn to Soviet Russia in the 20th century or even modern Russia under Putin…but I will leave that for someone more knowledgeable to tackle. Whichever way you choose to slice it, man or celestial, it is hard to be god.

5,5/10There is a basic plot description in the beginning but it is not always clear which character is which and what they are specifically doing. I read the Wikipedia Plot description afterwards and it makes it more understandable. The Dialogue is vague, often times outside the frame, since other people are constantly putting their face or other objects infront of the camera. Also some voices are clearly edited in, during post production. Hard to be a god gets repetitive after a while because the scenery stays the same and the bizarre actions go on for 3 hours.  I haven't seen anyone mention the horrible photoshopped face on the corpse at the end of the film, seemed like a budget thing.  With all that being said, the detailed visuals alone make it worth to watch. It is one of the most unique films I've seen. There isn't a film filthier than this

Like many of their novels, Strugatsky's "Hard to be a God" follows the same simple idea. The authors concentrate on a human character and their struggle when their principles and beliefs are tested coming into conflict with surrounding reality often very unusual or just straight alien. The authors are trying to study how this struggle forces the character to grow, make a choice and separate their own core principles from other over-imposed, superficial layers of social conditioning. In other words, a human character is the focus and the foreground. Everything else is just the stage.This film is a complete opposite. It concentrates on the stage, depicting it with black-and-white graphical cruelty, and leaves everything else behind. I failed to connect with this film at any level. What is so interesting about the stage that I need to watch it for 3 hours? It is just an artificial, contrived object anyway. With all due respect to Alexei German, any attempt to compare this film to Tarkovsky's "Stalker" is plain nonsense.

I almost never post a review of a film here on IMDb unless I've watched the entire thing. Upfront disclaimer about this review of "Hard to Be a God": I did not finish the movie. In fact, I only watched about a third of this movie. So feel free to stop reading now and move one, or to read my review and discount it. I forgive you.Now, why am I posting a review about a three-hour film of which I only watched about an hour? 1.) Because an hour is all I'm ever going to be able to watch of this film, so it's either post about it now or never; 2.) I have a feeling based on what I saw and what I've read about the film that watching the other two hours wouldn't much change my opinion, as what you see is pretty much what you get for the entire running time; and 3.) what I did see was compelling enough to make me want to share my opinion about it."Hard to Be a God" is difficult to describe so I won't even try. It is astounding in its visual detail and its authenticity in recreating the period look of the Middle Ages in all its scatological unpleasantness. Framed against this backdrop is a cacophony of human activity, swarms of people wandering on and off screen, sometimes interacting with the camera, muttering, shouting, barfing, pooping, peeing, spitting, farting, you name it. It's disgusting, intentionally so, and while I won't go so far as to say it's all pointless, it certainly feels that way. Or rather, the discomfort in watching humanity at its grossest isn't worth sticking with the thing long enough to find out what its point might be.But that said, it did make an indelible impression on me and kept me thinking about it. I'll leave it to people smarter or more patient (or both) than me to watch the whole thing and decide whether or not it deserves the idolatrous praise critics have heaped upon it. But having watched only the bit of it I did, I can say it's certainly SOMETHING.