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Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Hard to Be a God is playing on Mubi in the Us through January 2.Hard to Be a GodRussian director Aleksei German spent the final 15 years of his life working on Hard To Be A God (2013), a brutal medieval epic adapted from a 1964 novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strutgatsky, dying just before he could complete the job in February 2013. Happily, his son and widow were able to oversee the final sound mix. The result is one of the most immersive and harrowing cinematic experiences going, three hours of being put to the sword and mired in the mud, blood and viscera of a nightmare alternate reality.Although German's characters are dressed in the clanking armour, chainmail and robes of the European Middle Ages, Hard To Be A God is in fact set on a distant planet,...

Don Quixote

Stars: Nikolai Cherkasov, Yuri Tolubeyev, Serafima Birman, Lyudmila Kasyanova, Svetlana Grigoryeva, Tamilla Agamirova, Bruno Frejndlikh, Lidiya Vertinskaya | Written by Yevgeni Shvarts | Directed by Grigori Kozintsev

To get lost in a book is one of the most magical experiences we can have. Whatever our age it’s easy to enjoy a story of knights and wizards, tales of bravery and fairy tales, where good wins out in the end. Don Quixote is a tale of such innocent beliefs, the story of a man living the ultimate mid-life crisis and fighting for justice, even if the world in which he fights does not share the same view on both reality and what justice actually is.

After reading many books on chivalry and knighthood Senor Quexana decides that he is actually a knight, Don Quixote de la Macha. Setting off on his horse with his squire Sancho Panza (who is only...