When the main recommendation for a film is that it was shot in a single one-and-a-half hour steadicam take, you might just turn around and say "So what? Any joker with a modern video camera can do that". But when you see the scope of this film you begin to appreciate that this is not just a gimmick, but a tremendous leap of imagination and logistical planning.

It opens with a waggish 19th century French diplomat, The Marquis (Sergey Dreiden), who finds himself in the early 18th century, in a dark corridor of the palatial Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. After expressing, to a disembodied and world-weary voice from behind the camera, some initial bafflement at what he is doing here and how he suddenly came to speak fluent Russian, like Alice down the rabbit hole he starts following his heightened curiosity from room to room. "What's this? A party?" he says turning to the camera with eyebrows raised, and follows a group of giggling ladies in swirling gowns and powdered wigs up a stairwell. And thus our tour continues through 33 rooms and 2 kilometres of this huge and opulent building, and the last 300 years of Russian history.

For a one-take film this is a surprisingly smooth ride, especially when you see the extravagance of the set-ups themselves. Steadicam operator Tilman Buttner (Run Lola Run cameraman) glides elegantly from one mise en scene to another allowing Sokurov to lavish us with grandiose spectacle - 18th century aristocrats watching an opera accompanied by a gilded orchestra, Peter the Great berating a general and in the final ball room a scene where thousands in period costume swarm down a grand corridor.

Sokhurov's style is stately in pace and painterly in look, but he also has fun showing our 19th Century Euro-centric aristocrat interacting with historical figures and modern-day patrons of the museum visiting the works of art.

"Only German composers write music," The Marquis snipes as the rousing sounds of Tchaikovsky fill our ears. In an modern-era scene, The Marquis, in characteristically flamboyant outburst, mocks the lay-out of individual paintings on a gallery wall while, unbeknown to him, the Hermitage director murmurs to another a few feet away about the stranger in the funny garb. This kind of playfulness adds lightness to weighty intellectual questions about art and culture and their relationship with time and place, making the celebration of Russian culture all the enjoyable.