It is amazing. And beyond being just one shot, it's one amazingly dream-like shot; one dream-like shot with something like 500+ actors getting in and out of costume off camera and setting themselves in the next scene before the camera arrives. As so much has been said about the single shot, it's important to say also that the approach is a natural extension of the theme of the film - a journey through the Hermitage between two ghosts - one, a Russian citizen and the other, a French historian, who in real life wrote a travel book on Russia. The film itself, like the Hermitage, functions as the keeper of Russian history and art. In essence, like a Russian Ark, which is a seamless collage of ideas and events. Thus the one shot is entirely congruous. Watching it is to be inside this ark. It's meditative, other-worldly and envigorating.

P