"Russian Ark" is filmed in Hermitage musem for 90 minutes in one shot, with over a 100 actors and over a 100 extras.
This is an extremely boring movie. The interesting parts of the plot could fit into a 3 min short film. You pretty much need to know a lot about Russian history in order to make any sense out of the movie.
On the other hand, "The making of the Russian Ark" on the same DVD is great. I was impressed by the movie's technical complexity, before I saw how it was made. And then I was impressed many times over!!!
"The making of..." shows all important scenes, but with the commentary so one can actually understand what the director wanted to say. You will see everything worth seeing in the feature.
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