Review for The Alexander Sokurov Collection Box Set

OK. So he’s Russia’s best known and most lauded film director. But his work is totally new to me. So I watched this three movie set with a completely open mind. Which was just as well. Phew. Where to start? How do you describe the indescribable? Well, two films fall into that category perhaps whilst the third completely side-swiped me by actually being a fairly straight-forward documentary , and not a particularly well-crafted one either. Confused? Moi?


The first two films in the set herald from the latter half of the 1980’s utilising scripts from collaborator Yury Arabov. Both are dream-like, surreal explorations, often bleak and occasionally beautiful, paying back the enormous patience and concentration required to sit through them with a poetic majesty.

‘Save and Protect’ is a marathon of a movie (I just about managed to watch it in a single sitting despite its near three-hour run time) which is, supposedly, an adaptation of Madame Bovary. The central character is played by a striking Swiss French amateur actress (Cécile Zervudacki) who is neither beautiful or ugly in the traditional sense, but something in-between. The French have a phrase for such allure - "Une jolie-laide". Though dialogue is very sparse, she uses French and Russian though is the only one to do so. All other dialogue is exclusively Russian.


The recurring shots of feathers flying across desolate rooms and the wondrous landscapes are absolutely stunning, as are the Director’s eye for light and composition. He also frequently plays with sound which often disappears altogether during sexual sequences or which uses audio affects from different scenes by way of juxtaposition. It’s a playful, audacious style of directing rarely seen in cinema today. Indeed, I wondered how the finances were raised for such an opus. It’s not something we are ever likely to see come out of Hollywood.


The narrative, what little there is that is understandable, shows the steady psychological decline of a married woman who, through her own stupidity, falls into destitution, illness and eventually death. But you get the feeling that such a narrative is merely an allegory for something deeper; perhaps the complete futility of life which, after all, is just a series of experiences joined together by un-ending tedium.


Whatever the case, from a cinematic perspective it’s an impressive film, though may well prove to be too oblique for many.


‘The Second Circle’ is quite different and it’s hard to believe that this is the work of the same director. Relentlessly bleak and slow-moving, it’s filmed in variants of monochrome – a film about death and decay. A man’s father has just dies in a bleak, empty room filled with dust.


The only dialogue is between the man and a woman who has arrived to take over the practicalities of the funeral. There are frequently periods of silence where virtually nothing in frame moves – a bleakly existential film that questions the validity of a life now extinguished.


It's worth noting that every film of the film (and there are thousands) would make a perfectly acceptable 'Joy Division' LP cover.


In short, a very thought-provoking meditation for those prepared to invest the time. But not a barrel of laughs.


Finally, we get one of Sokurov’ s’Elegy’ series of documentaries which are portraits of great Russian artistes.


‘Elegy of Life’ focusses on husband-and-wife musicians Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya. A standard mix of contemporary events and interviews, mixed with archival pieces cobine to create an interesting, if unspectacular profile of the two. Sokuron himself narrates.


In truth, for me, this was a slightly incongruous inclusion as this is cleary television work and pretty straight-forward at that, revealing little of Sokurov the artiste, probably to avoid over-shadowing his subjects for whom he clearly has enormous respect.


There are no extras on the discs and image quality on the first two discs is great whilst the 2006 documentary uses a mix of source material including video.
I would only recommend this set to someone who has the patience to explore and appreciate film as art. For me, I straddled between moments of boredom and moments of sheer elation at the beauty of it all. Maybe that was the intent.