Hermitage-Niks:
A Passion for the Hermitage
by Aliona van der Horst, Director
First Run / Icarus Films, Brooklyn NY,
2003
VHS,125 mins., (five episodes of 25 minutes
each), col.
Sales (Video), $390; rental (Video), $125
Distributors website: http://www.frif.com.
The
Hermitage Dwellers
by Aliona van der Horst, Director
First Run / Icarus Films, Brooklyn NY,
2003
VHS, 73 mins., col.
Sales (Video-DVD), $348; rental (Video),
$100
Distributors website: http://www.frif.com.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
Department of Art, University of Northern
Iowa
ballast@netins.net
What a powerful film this is! I can't
recommend it highly enough. Having said
that, I should explain that these two
titles (Hermitage-Niks: A Passion for
the Hermitage and The Hermitage
Dwellers) are actually two versions
of the same film, one of which is more
detailed than the other. In a somewhat
different edited form, The Hermitage
Dwellers is contained within Hermitage-Niks,
so you end up with both by buying the
first, along with additional footage.
I should also explain that the film's
subject (sort of) is the world renowned
Russian art museum, The Hermitage, housed
in the palace of Czarina Catherine the
Great in St. Petersburg. I say "sort of"
because (as its titles indicate) the film's
subject is not so much the vast palace
complex, the Hermitage's massive art holdings,
nor its history, but rather all those
things (and more) in relation to the people
who currently work there (for low salaries)
in such essential capacities as curator,
art handler, attendant, head of maintenance,
and so on. The film is made up candid
yet gracefully edited talks with various
workers (from the young to those in their
80s); behind-the-scenes filming of the
museum's halls, vast stairwells and storage
rooms, of the Hermitage collection, of
visiting tourists and schoolchildren,
of museum personnel at work, and of dining
and dancing on Victory Day; and disquieting
archival footage about a century of constant
political strife in Russian daily life,
from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to
the post-Soviet era. Somehow, by whatever
miracle, this place and its treasures
have always survived and continue to now
through the generous work of the museum
staff.
(Reprinted by permission from Ballast
Quarterly Review, Volume 21 Number
2, Winter 2005-2006.)