A Bosch painting come to life.
The first thing to know about Hard to Be a God is that it’s a visually astounding film. Aleksei German has filled every inch of his silvery three-hour epic with arresting detail. The second is that German, who made only six films during his lifetime, died before completing this long-gestating adaptation of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s science-fiction novel (his wife and son provided the finishing touches). The third is that it plays like a funhouse mirror reflection of the Middle Ages with nary a robot or spaceship in sight…