The 2004 documentary “The Hermitage: A Journey in Time and
Space”, by Vladimir Ptashchenko, was released on DVD by Kultur in 2014. The visuals in the film are outstanding in
clarity, despite that the DVD is standard.
The film starts with some shots of the entire long structure
of the museum on the water, and then a concert inside the museum starts, with a
Mozart overture. A variety of music by
Bach. Vivaldi, Mozart and Haydn play for most of the film (especially Haydn’s “Farewell”
Symphony in F# Minor); gradually the music moves to Tchaikovsky and even
Schnittke.
The film ends with a lights festival outdoors at the
museum. In between, we get the grand
tour, with lots of detailed descriptions of many of the paintings and sculptures,
with explanations of how the pieces fit into Russian Czarist history.
There is gemstone corset with a whole rainbow of brilliant
colors. There is a room with an unusual
collection of green jade sculptures balancing the more ordinary room colors.
The museum was a residence until the Russian revolution.
Film may be the best way people can see parts of Russia
right now, especially St. Petersburg (on the Baltic Sea, not too far from the
Finnish border). Tensions are high, and
the Russian anti-gay propaganda law of 2013 might present issues for LGBT
people with public blogs about their lives that are accessible in Russia (I
have yet to hear if any arrests of tourists have happened for this reason). For
all its beauty, St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) had an anti-gay speech law
before Russia as a whole did.
The official site from Kultur is here.
I have a related review of an older film “Russian Ark” (by
Sokurov) and the associated documentary “In One Breath” on Wordpress here.
Wikipedia attribution link for Hermitage entrance picture by
Yair Haklai (Creative Commons, Share-Alike 3.0).
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