Hard to Be a God
Short description
Hard to Be a God is set on Arkanar, a planet whose civilisation has stalled in a medieval stage while Earth has moved far ahead. A group of observers from Earth is stationed there under strict rules: they must stay unrecognised, avoid taking sides and never kill a local. One of them, Rumata, lives among the inhabitants as a nobleman of supposed divine descent and watches as intellectuals and book lovers are hunted down. When the persecution becomes a massacre, remaining a neutral onlooker proves impossible for him.
The film is the sixth feature by director Aleksei German, who wrote the screenplay with Svetlana Karmalita. It adapts the novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Leonid Yarmolnik, who also produced, plays Rumata; Yuriy Tsurilo, Natalya Moteva, Aleksandr Chutko, Aleksandr Ilin and Evgeniy Gerchakov appear alongside him, and the credited cast runs to 104 names. It was shot in Russia over roughly a decade and runs 177 minutes.
Made for about 7 million dollars, it took around 1 million worldwide, so it found a limited cinema audience. Responses split sharply by group: on IMDb it sits at 6.6/10 from 176 votes, while the film critics' rating of 9/10 from 44 reviews places professional assessment far above that viewer average.
What's left behind the scenes
- Location shooting began in the spring of 2000 in the Czech Republic. Arkanar was built near the Touchník Castle. Studio shooting took place in Saint Petersburg.
- The director decided to film 'Hard to Be a God' in 1968, four years after the book was published. Together with Boris Strugatsky, they wrote the first version of the screenplay. In August, German received permission to film, but soon after, Operation Danube began – the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the troops of the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries, so the director was not allowed to make the film. The production of the film was delayed due to difficulties with funding and the complexity of dubbing.
- On February 21, 2013, Alexei German passed away before he could finish the film. His son, Alexei German Jr., and Svetlana Karmalita completed the work on the film.
- According to the script, the film was originally supposed to be titled "What the Tobacco Merchant Said from Tobacco Street." By spring 2008, Alexei German had completed the film's editing and wanted to call it "Massacre in Arkanar" or "Chronicle of the Arkanar Massacre." In August 2011, the director stated that the film was in the sound editing stage and the final title would be the same as that of the Strugatsky brothers' story, "Hard to Be a God."
- Filming began in 2000 and ended in 2006. Since then, Alexei German worked primarily on the sound. Unfortunately, he died in February 2013, before he had time to finish the sound editing.
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