Faust (2011)

Aleksandr Sokurov making his own version of Faust? I haven't heard of this film, but as I stumbled upon it, and as an admirer of Sokurov's, I was eager to watch it. It turned out Sokurov is perhaps just the right person to make the most of Goethe's winding and richly cross-referencing play (the film covers book one only). Instead of fooling around with a dry costume drama, Sokurov focuses on the madness, the hallucinatory and outrageous sides of Faust. Filters and image manipulations are employed to enhance the experience of dizziness. The story is a familiar one: a brooding scholar sells his soul to the devil. The devil is a scheming bastard, a moneylender in fact - and a jester - and the scholar falls in love with Gretchen. The overarching themes are power and the quest for knowledge and domination. I wish all adaptations of literary works would take as much liberty with the material as Sokurov does here. Digital skies (the cinematographer is said to be responsible for one of the Harry Potter movies!), gritty streets and eerie conversations - this is Sokurov's Faust. The film evokes smells and impressions, the life of the town along with the life of nature. Every impression is filtered through a sense of hectic dreaminess. The result is a strange oscillation between melancholy and a sort of propulsive drive.