Overcast and composed with the sombre spirituality and oil-dark
character of a Caspar David Friedrich painting like The Monk at the Sea,
which indeed was the model for this pastoral story of the intense, almost
unspoken ties between a grown-up son and his ailing mother, Alexandr
Sokurov's film has a specific gravity few other film-makers would dare
match in the crowd-pleasing imperatives of today's cinema.
Every day, the son (Alexei
Ananishnov) walks through the countryside,
sometimes alone, or carrying his parent (Gudrun Geyer). Repetition with
variations: wind, trees, a spatter of rain, thunder rumble, stream or
beach, a far-off train. The walk becomes the life; the painterly route
taken reflects the inner relationships. The pathetic fallacy that nature
is in sympathy with us is as dated as a Friedrich painting itself. But
Sokurov turns life into art, and back again. He has a control I haven't
seen exercised so relentlessly over actors since Carl Dreyer was alive.
Will it move you? I'm not sure. But you'll marvel at a film so far out of
our time.
From This
is London
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