Khrustalyov, My Car!

Discuss releases from Arrow and the films on them.

Moderator: yoloswegmaster

Message
Author
User avatar
Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#26 Post by Aunt Peg » Fri May 03, 2019 2:42 am

Thanks.

User avatar
OldBobbyPeru
Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:15 am

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#27 Post by OldBobbyPeru » Fri May 03, 2019 12:36 pm

I got my copy yesterday, and had a double feature with The Death of Stalin.

This is a great package, really well done. From reading this thread and elsewhere, I knew the film was rather oblique, so I read the wiki article on the "Doctors' Plot" and watched the extra "Diagnosis Murder" for background info. That was interesting, but didn't help much--the film was still more or less impossible to follow. I think I was expecting a more straight ahead story than Hard to be a God--it's not. But like that film, this is going to reveal itself more and more on repeat viewings. It's always fascinating to watch--German's framing and camera moves are virtuosic, and the mis-en-scene is crazy cluttered.

It very much reminded me at times of a Fellini movie. There's a dreamlike quality to it.

User avatar
ng4996
the Wizard of Ozu
Joined: Sun May 01, 2016 11:01 pm
Location: Missoula, MT

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#28 Post by ng4996 » Fri May 03, 2019 2:42 pm

After seeing and loving Hard To Be A God, this has been high on my watchlist for years. Watched my copy and a few extras last night, and I can't wait to go through the rest of it. The film is exceptional, and this could very well be the best release of the year. Hopefully more German on home video isn't too far off.

User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#29 Post by FrauBlucher » Fri May 03, 2019 11:27 pm


GoodOldNeon
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:58 am

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#30 Post by GoodOldNeon » Sat May 04, 2019 1:13 pm

I watched this last night and I echo the positive comments above, both re: the film and Arrow's exemplary release.

Even though the plot was difficult for me to follow, the fact that the film is tied to a historical reality made it much easier to remain engaged. In contrast, I found the fantasy world of Hard to be a God less compelling, which made that film ever so slightly tedious.

User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#31 Post by FrauBlucher » Sat May 11, 2019 6:54 pm

Well, I finished this and have started to dig into the supplements. It was one of the strangest, surreal, incromprehensible films I have ever seen. And I loved it. It makes Fellini's middle and later period feel staid. Thankfully, Arrow has loaded the release with supplements because they are vital to understanding German's art and his intent for this particular film. The cinematography is beautiful and the attention to detail had to be exhausting for German. As others have said it is hard to follow but that's what makes it interesting and desirable for repeat viewings. What helps is an underlying thread of Russian/Soviet history that helps guide you through. This could be a contender for release of the year coming from Arrow.

moreorless
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:34 am

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#32 Post by moreorless » Tue May 28, 2019 7:49 am

You getting near to making me override my normal stinginess and pickup the limited edition version at full price, certainly I'v found Hard to be a God grew on me with time and indeed judging it freer from expectations.

User avatar
Michael Kerpan
Spelling Bee Champeen
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:20 pm
Location: New England
Contact:

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#33 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:18 pm

Absolutely stunning looking -- it reminds me of Yoshida. Over-stuffed with visual beauty and often close to incomprehensible. I didn't mind the hard-to-understand parts, but found one portion almost unbearable-to-watch. Too brutal and extreme for me, I'm afraid.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#34 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:24 pm

This is one of the most bizarre nightmares I've seen committed to celluloid. I conceded all attempts to figure out the meaning behind scenes early on and surrendered to the vigor of the atmosphere, an approach I feel is not just necessary but intentional by German, who invites and prevents accessibility to his art in choppy disorienting rhythms. There’s something Lynchian about how absolutely absurd some moments are, like an early one involving cats and doppelgängers, and some of the anxiety-prone and detail-heavy framing within tracking shots reminded me of the experiences of watching films like Birdman or Punch-Drunk Love for the first time. However, unlike those films we don’t have a clear sense of who the antihero is or what his aims are, and so it’s impossible to ever truly find a focal point for balance as we’re left to struggle for our own sanity. If German's objective was to attempt to capture the accuracy of the era by magnifying the dissonance between its physicality and psychology, the result is quite an effective process to craft his vision. His filmmaking choices are jarring by nature, juxtaposing realism in the accuracy of setting by designing the environment with meticulous attention to detail, whilst injecting surrealistic chaos into narrative and form. The film is more like a dream (and though funny at times, it’s not a pleasant one) and yet it’s too rooted in a sense of truth to let us off that easy, from the relentlessly ubiquitous reminder of the macro consequences of the politics to acute brutal scenes of assault. The black and white contrast photography is gorgeous, as are the creative and elaborate technical decisions that at times seem to reinvent the wheel of how cinema can be used as a fresh kind of self-destructing weapon. This is a film that uses all of its cinematic tools to draw the viewer in and keep them at a distance by never truly allowing us to break free from an objective point of view but somehow still involving and affecting us until we're left emotionally depleted; traumatized, exhausted, invigorated, and inspired. The handling of this quasi-vicarious experience is so dizzying that it becomes nauseating in its dysregulation, which I suppose is the point. There are a lot of films that share aspects with this one, but there’s really nothing quite like it.

This is a film that finds new (and masters old) ways to trigger and disturb nearly all the senses one uses in absorbing the medium. I loved it, but it's even more intense than I expected coming from the also-anomalous Hard to Be a God.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#35 Post by zedz » Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:39 pm

Finally watched this yesterday, after stalling about half an hour in some time ago.

I find German Sr.'s aesthetic amazing and fascinating, but I'm temperamentally averse to Felliniesque gurning. I tried devoting my full attention to it, trying to parse every relationship and plot development, and just wound up exhausted and irritated.

This time through, I decided to just let it wash over me, surfing on the style and trying to pick up the pieces at the end. To my great surprise, the main arc of the plot fell into place quite straightforwardly (the doctor realizes when the foreigner comes to his house that he's been compromised, runs away, is captured and brutalized, but is 'restored' to his former rank in order to try and save the dying Stalin. He fails, and when he returns to his debased family, finds his son trying to betray him, and runs away again.) I think it was just a case of taking a step back, like taking in the overall composition of a Bruegel canvas rather than focusing too closely on the disorienting details. On the micro- level, the film still often confounds comprehension, in the sense that I have no idea why individual characters are saying or doing particular things on a moment by moment basis, but at least I had a global comprehension of what was going on, and could relax and go along for German's wild ride.

For the baffled, Daniel Bird's commentary explains the plot thoroughly, in much more detail than I gleaned on a first viewing, and often in German's own words.

He's still a filmmaker I admire more than love (and I'm a much bigger fan of his son's films, which I can only hope will become more accessible with the current revival in his father's critical fortunes), but this is a superbly assembled introductory package.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#36 Post by zedz » Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:53 pm

Finished off the extras, and they're all great, but the easy highlight is Johnathan Brent talking about the Doctor's Plot. He really knows his stuff, and he's an enthusiastic and engaging speaker. He seems thrilled to be talking about it, and it's a delight to listen to him.

Curiously, the film that was actually shot on the set of the feature is the least essential of the extras. The behind-the-scenes footage is surprisingly unsurprising, and while the interview with German that it frames is terrific, his words were very thoroughly mined for Daniel Bird's commentary, so there's barely anything new here if you've listened to that.

User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#37 Post by FrauBlucher » Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:32 pm

Zedz, excellent. I very much appreciate reading your take on this whole release. It really is one of my favorites this year. And you’re right. If you peel away all the Felliniesque imagery and non sequitur conversations you do get a pretty straight forward narrative. Your second viewing is really the way one needs to go into the film. Just let it happen and pay more attention to the bigger picture then try to react to every little shot and dialogue, otherwise frustration and annoyance will set in

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#38 Post by MichaelB » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:26 am

zedz wrote:
Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:53 pm
Curiously, the film that was actually shot on the set of the feature is the least essential of the extras. The behind-the-scenes footage is surprisingly unsurprising, and while the interview with German that it frames is terrific, his words were very thoroughly mined for Daniel Bird's commentary, so there's barely anything new here if you've listened to that.
Daniel and I had a similar issue with the official making-of doc for Hard to Be a God - it revealed next to nothing, and even the interview with German wasn't much cop, which is why we didn't bother licensing it for the Arrow edition.

Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Re: Khrustalyov, My Car!

#39 Post by Calvin » Sun May 10, 2020 10:05 am

The limited edition has sold out and this has been reissued in a standard edition sans booklet, poster and slipcase.

This is probably the best place to advertise that Kino Klassika are 'screening' Trial on the Road, German's debut, until 16th May as part of their online season of Soviet WWII cinema. Trial on the Road is also available to stream on YouTube direct from Lenfilm, but the Kino Klassika stream seems to have better compression - though it is sadly from the same source. It will hopefully be restored soon; Lenfilm have restored both Twenty Days Without War and My Friend Ivan Lapshin.

Post Reply