Director Alexander Sokurov remains best known for Russian Ark (2002), a stroll through Russian history in the form of an unbroken, 90-minute Steadicam tour of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage. Although his 2013 Faust (out on DVD) is not filmed in one continuous take, it suggests Ark in feel. Working within the loose frame of Goethe’s sprawling opus, the Russian director conducts a rambling mystery tour through metaphysics, philosophy and morals in an 18th century world that often resembles a Bruegel painting come to life.
Johannes Zeiler, whose quizzical, melancholy features will remind many viewers of Ralph Fiennes, plays Dr. Faust. Although a physician, astronomer and man of science searching for the key to the cosmos, Faust is penurious, living in an attic and pawning belongings with the local broker, Mauricius (Anton Adasinsky). The pawnbroker is the film’s Mephistopheles, a cynical curmudgeon who leads the sad-eyed seeker through many circular discussions—and into trouble.
Sokurov’s screenplay is opaque; the clue to his intention is Faust’s place as the final entry in his quartet of films on “Men of Power.” Putting Dr. Faust in the company of the quartet’s previous subjects—Hitler, Lenin and Hirohito—positions his retelling of Goethe’s fable as a cautionary tale about those who might seek to remold the world according to their own ideas and ambitions.
Working with cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Sokurov has fashioned a unique cinematic vision in a muted palette with many images framed tightly in black as if they are moving pictures affixed to the pages of an antique photo album. The murky, askew effect sometimes suggests a high tech magic lantern show, or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari shot in daylight. Faust is in German with English subtitles.
