On August 6, in Switzerland, the Locarno International Film Festival presented the world premiere of the new film by the famous Russian director Alexandre Sokurov, 71 years old. This former pupil of Andrei Tarkovsky is notably the author of The Russian Ark (2002), work shot in a single sequence shot of ninety-six minutes through the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Skazka (Fairytale, “Fairy Tale”, for its international presentation) is “a spooky spectacle” that “is unlike anything else and meets no canon”, comments the Russian daily Kommersant. The subject – Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Churchill are in purgatory and pass the time while waiting for the doors of paradise to open – is treated from archive images, mounted on a synthetic setting referring in particular to the works of Gustave Dore.
An infernal four
“He is the real Führer, the real Duce, the real Little Father of the peoples, seized at different ages of life, who are agitated, vociferating and ranting”describes for its part the Swiss daily Time. Each character speaks their own language – German, Italian, English and Georgian (mother tongue of Joseph Djougachvili, alias Stalin).
“Stalin, who murdered half of Russia, thinks it was deserved and reminds us that when you mow the grass, you have to cut it short, continues Time. Hitler still wonders why he didn’t burn