Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2011, Faust completes Sokurov’s loose tetralogy on the lives of historical figures, which began with studies of Adolf Hitler (Moloch, 1999), Vladimir Lenin (Taurus, 2000) and Emperor Hirohito (The Sun, 2005). His new film delves deeper into the nature of power with a unique take on Goethe’s classic tale.
From one of Russia’s greatest filmmakers comes a unique interpretation of Goethe’s classic tale of a man who sells his soul to the Devil. A coda to the director’s fictional profiles of three tyrants (Hitler in Moloch, Stalin in Taurus and Hirohito in The Sun), Sokurov’s latest film explores mankind’s propensity for corruption in the face of power and sexual gratification. And as with all the director’s films, the result is a work of ravishing beauty.
Available on Curzon on Demand 11 May.
http://www.curzoncinemas.com/films/details/1193/faust-sokurov/
Kinoklub in Edinburgh
TSAR / ЦАРЬ
Tuesday 22 May, 6pm
Filmhouse cinema, 88 Lothian Road, Edinburgh
KinoKlub is expanding! Academia Rossica have joined forces with Edinburgh University's Princess Dashkova Centre and the Filmhouse cinema to bring regular screenings of Russian films to Edinburgh.
KinoKlub's first Scottish screening will be multi-award winning director Pavel Lungin's historical drama TSAR, telling the violent but fascinating story of the moral conflict between Ivan the Terrible and the Metropolitan Filipp.Russia in the 1560s is in the grip of chaos. Ivan the Terrible believes he’s on a holy mission and that his orders come straight from God. He demands absolute power over his people and will destroy anyone who opposes him. In an attempt to keep a close leash on things, Ivan appoints old friend and scholar, Filipp, to be the head of the Orthodox Church. Filipp’s honesty places him at odds with Ivan, as he dares to question his authority, going so far as to ask the Tsar to renounce his policies of terror: public executions, torture, and land confiscation.
At the centre of Tsar is the clash between two powerful men, an ideal acting vehicle for two of Russia’s seminal actors, Pyotr Mamonov as Tsar Ivan and Oleg Yankovsky as Filipp. This was Yankovsky’s 71st and final film role; he died in May 2009.
Tsar does not purport to be a historical overview of Ivan’s reign, but focuses instead on internal struggles closer to the throne – issues of duty, friendship, loyalty, power, paranoia, fanaticism, and madness.
LATE ADDITION The screening will be introduced by Dr Andrei Rogatchevski, Russian Programme Director at the University of Glasgow, who will also lead a short discussion after the screening on issues raised by the film.
http://www.filmhousecinema.com/showing/tsar/
