Sergey Dreyden

In Russian Ark (2002), Sergey Dreyden gives us someone to follow through the Hermitage when the rooms threaten to become the main attraction. His Marquis de Custine supplies a human focus for Alexander Sokurov’s single-take journey, and sustaining that presence is a substantial part of the film’s achievement. We were glad of his company: the historical grandeur is easier to engage with when there is a person to attend to. This is a performance worth seeking out, with an insistence that occasionally makes a demanding film harder work.

Dreyden’s screen work grew out of small parts in the early 1960s, alongside a substantial theatre career. Yuri Mamin’s Window to Paris (1993) gave him a prominent lead as Nikolay Chizhov in a satire about a magical passage between Leningrad and Paris. Russian Ark then brought international attention. The eccentric or intellectual outsider recurs in his casting, a useful position for an actor whose presence can stop a film full of ideas losing sight of people.

Sokurov also exposes the limits of that usefulness. Dreyden can become as insistent as the commentary around him, and the film does not always leave us enough space to look and listen. The offscreen melancholy is the greater problem, telling us what to feel about the past, but the central performance does not entirely escape the same habit. There is skill in maintaining a distinctive presence throughout a single take, even if that technical demand is no reason to excuse the moments when he presses too hard.

The later films include supporting parts in Boris Khlebnikov’s Help Gone Mad (2009) and Kirill Serebrennikov’s Petrov’s Flu (2021). Leading a conspicuous experiment did not mean abandoning smaller roles. Those credits fit a screen career spent largely in character parts, often in satirical or director-led films. Start with Russian Ark, and do not feel obliged to be solemn just because it is.