Solemplex
To me, this movie is perfection.
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Bryan Kluger
Back in 2011, Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov tackled the iconic story of 'Faust', something that has been interpreted and done many times over since Johann Wolfgang von Goethe first wrote the version most recognized days a few hundred years ago. It's quite a big feat to tackle this subject matter and make work on an artistic and entertaining level, but Sokruov make it work and eventually the film went on to win the top award at the Venice Film Festival of that year.If you're unfamiliar with the story of 'Faust', don't let this box art trick you. If you go solely from the box art, you might think this is a very boring period piece, but you would be wrong in that assumption. So wrong in fact, that the movie basically starts out with an image of a corpse's sexual organs. I know, how very 'Nekromantik' of them, right? The film centers on a man named Faust (Johannes Zeiler) who is very interested in what makes the world function, humans love, and if people really have souls.Faust tries to research this and learn for his own sake. He even goes so far as to literally dig and play with people's guts and blood in order to find a higher plane of existence and soul to humanity. And yes, there is enough gore for your horror hounds out there to enjoy. Fast befriends Moneylender (Anton Adasinsky), who is basically the Devil himself, as he takes Faust on a journey through town, showing him the bad things of the world. But Faust soon comes infatuated with a beautiful woman named Gretchen (Isolda Dychauk).Faust literally sells his soul to his new friend the Devil in order to have Gretchen, which sets off a series of events, which ultimately leaves Faust in Hell. Sokurov tends to tell this gruesome and twisted tale in an abstract way, more so than a literal way, and it takes a little time to understand what exactly is going on.His camera-work is excellent and is a new take and very fresh adaptation of this classic tale. The set design is haunting and award worthy as well. The actors deliver on their performances spot on with this type of story telling, which to say the least is not for weak-stomached. It would have been nice to have a more cohesive narrative here, rather than someone narrating for us the entire time and a movie that is made with an abstract eye, rather than a literal one, would have done wonders for the entertainment value here, but one thing is for sure, you won't be able to look away here. This version of 'Faust' is definitely worth seeing.
ferdinand1932
There ought to be a committee that bans directors from doing classic literature. Invariably what happens is the second rate pretension of the director are shown up and in this case, the film in style seems stolen from FW Murnau; so not even that is original.It's a rambling semi-Wenders stroll around a film set that appears like some Bavarian village in a search for something which has little to do with Goethe but dresses up the artifice sufficiently to attract the financing to make this concoction of sophomoric banality. Well, people were employed for a few weeks so it can't have been a total travesty.It is and it will be and not even reading reviews is a good idea as it gives this movie some reckoning at status. Don't bother.
Armand
it is not the best Faust adaptation. the form is different, the Sokurov ambition to create his story is obvious, the images are pieces from same material of others movies by him. but it is far to be the worst adaptation. short, the lead character of film is the director. and this character is Mephisto in clothes of Faust. the dark scenes, the atmosphere, the dialogs, the Georgian young man or Isolda Dychauk as Renaissance Madonna/Margareta, the first scene and the last, each is letter of a letter who desire say more than its text. a profound film and not uninspired game with a delicate subject. good performance, interesting presence of Hanna Schygulla, smart manner to translate to present the Goethe drama. but , more than philosophic movie, it is a too complicated labyrinth. the ambition is to impress with entire force. but something missing. maybe, the soul.
altyn
Sokurov is in a very different line of business from Goethe. No ennobling Faust's motives here, no redemption thanks to beauty or God's grace. The spectator is cast down onto a greasy, grimy and smelly small-town world where a cynical Dr. Faust states at once that he has not found any soul when dissecting people's bodies. Material problems suffocate his thirst for knowledge, so the tempting devil is the town's moneylender (a character who does not believe in eternal good but believes in eternal evil). Faust lets himself be seduced with only formal protest and does not care a jot about signing his soul away, when the deal is at last offered; but, as he keeps saying, "for this, you must give me more". Margarethe is not enough, meeting the dead is not enough, understanding nature's work is not enough; Faust goes on, apparently to nowhere. It is a visually straining experience, but also enticing in retrospect.
