Wandering in Alexander Sokurov’s Cinema

Coldness, Silence, Bareness

Amir Siadat

Khakis and Ochers

A lonely old woman is in the heart of a harsh and barren militaristic atmosphere, among young people far from home, beauty and femininity, who do not show much sign of brutality in their faces and behavior, but all of them are armed and constantly clean their weapons (and away from personal hygiene and cleaning), ready at any moment to carry out "the mission"; Missions with clear traces on the ruins of Chechnya. The presence of an aged and wise woman, and her contrast with the military atmosphere and the behavior of the tough men, create a situation with potential tension. Alexandra's vast and deep world, nevertheless, postpones any incidents. Emphasizing the details of daily life in the local market and the ruins of Chechnya or the military camp, rather than having an optimistic echo (or trying to present a kind of "life goes on"), is a show of surrender and submission. Everyone has completely lost their sensitivity and accepted the situation as it is. They know nothing will change. The soldiers have become accustomed to the barren and deadly world around them and have forgotten peace, women and beauty to the extent that Alexandra, with that wrinkled face and fat awe, attracts their attention. They do not look depressed and homesick, in a way that we feel like they want to stay in the camp forever. So, the young boy will not go to his grandmother's house; His house is here. If Alexandra, despite its avoidance of showing scenes of killing and conflict, has internal violence, it is because the war does not end in the minds of the military forces, even when it is actually over. This endlessness shows its objective embodiment in chaotic relationships that have taken on a normal and habitual form due to repetition and have reached stability and consistency. Alexandra seems too old and senile to disturb this stability. What is the long shot that frames her while leaving the camp next to the huge military vehicles, but a display of insignificance? Alexandra is not a story of transformation or - even - of a journey. Grandmother's presence in the military zone is not important and does not change anything. The war will continue, the grandmother will live alone and die alone. No one is transformed by her presence, nor does she experience a change in her cognition. Alexandra tells stories as little as possible to mobilize its forces as much as possible to build a world without stories and enchantment. In the colorless atmosphere of the army, whose ochres and khakis are constantly in the audience's eyes to disturb him, every moment that shows emotion, in Sokurov's mise-en-scène finds a lyrical and poetic sense (for example, where the grandson combs, smells and weaves the grandmother's hair along with the music). The film is more realistic and far-sighted than it can even be called "anti-war". It seems that Sokurov does not believe in such messages. The fact that neither the young soldier insists on returning nor the grumpy old woman evokes sympathy as it should, shows a fundamental difference with the stereotypes of anti-war cinema. Sokurov's camera sits in the place of an observer who is no longer surprised by anything. He has accepted that this is the rule of the game; Sad but true. If we go back a few years to trace the dominant elements of Alexandra, with Father and Son, we will reach another harsh military and - more or less - monochromatic atmosphere, one side of which is the inherent-natural need of the boy and the other side, the patriarchal environmental order. Femininity appears this time in the form of a young girl, behind the window of the military camp; Outside, behind the bars - like a forbidden element - out of the boy's reach. Framing and découpage as they bestow the presence of the girl an ethereal and mesmerizing effect, at the same time, they inform us of the elusiveness and instability of this presence. In a narrative in which femininity has been diluted and marginalized, Sokurov's camera, from the very beginning, slowly creeps into the eccentric solitude of the father and son and lingers on the naked male body and the tangled and rhythmic movements of them, and from the inside of the breathing, grappling and entwining, and the friction of the flesh and the skin of the two, create a pure visual chaos and an abstract saga in which the border between love and hatred, connection and separation, sexuality and violence, is blurred and illegible. In this vague and impenetrable arena, there is fear and insecurity, the results of which are the "prohibition" (the girl appears to be completely unattainable in her two times appearances) and also the boy's difficult military exercises to strengthen his physical power and finally fight with his own father; A man with an agile body and well-trained muscles (reminiscent of sacred and well-figured renaissance figures) who is the embodiment of competition and security in the son's eyes full of envy and admiration, and when he is depicted alone in the final imaginary landscape, it reveals its mythological-metaphorical dimensions perfectly. In the end, we have gone through an opaque experience in the oscillation between abstraction and historical presentation, which can be interpreted in connection with the consequences of the patriarchal militarism of the Soviet Union, and the lack of vitality in the years after its collapse. As far as we can remember, the path of the father and sons of western literature ends in tragedy. This father and son, however, are the composers of romance.

Farewell Europe

Sons cannot approach fathers as they should and stare into their eyes; An unspoken rule and a hidden conflict do not allow it. Either they should settle for short and sneaky glances, like what is often seen in Father and Son, or when the dead body of the father rests in front of them, they open their eyelids to observe a look that has been emptied of life (The Second Circle); And the relationship between son and father is full of conflict and secret and ambiguity and blame. Conversely, in Mother and Son, we are dealing with a series of long shots that show mother and son in connection with each other, coexisting and dreaming together, in eternal harmony. Here is an isolated and far-reached territory which is not stained with patriarchal ochres and khakis; Here is the end of the world, or in other words, the end of what we want from the world: a timeless realm that has placed mother and child together in a dreamy unity, in the womb of living nature. In this exemplary timelessness, it is possible to tie the end point to the beginning, so that the narrative that, instead of moving forward, repeats itself, also move along in an endless cycle on a macro level (the film does not completely reject the possibility of the mother's survival at the end). Mother and Son are in basic balance; In a heavenly unity, floating in the realm of illusion and imagination. Everything is static and motionless and without ups and downs. And the cinema is submissive to the immobile realm of painting. Many have said and written about the painting-like frames of Sokurov's cinema, and the influence of great European artists on him, such as Caspar David Friedrich, Hieronymus Bosch, Francis Bacon, Rubens, El Greco, Rembrandt and others (J. Hoberman in a detailed article compares frames of Mother and Son with William Turner's paintings). Who knows? Perhaps the enviable images of Mother and Son and the son's insatiable desire to be with his mother and take care of her - who is clearly in decline - are indicative of Sokurov's own relationship with Classical art, which can be called the "origin" or "source" in a sense! The old art of Europe, which we know at least according to Russian Ark, Sokurov is completely enamored with and regrets its loss (isn't that we hear at the end of Hermitage's tour, "Farewell Europe! "? ). Having said that, don't the unbreakable bond between mother and son and the continuity of images in Russian Ark indicate a kind of deep attachment to the roots and sources? Russian Ark is in a way the most narrative work of Sokurov. Hermitage's labyrinths and corridors, halls and magnificent and luxurious lobbies are full of stories and the film - unlike most of Sokurov's works - is colorful, glamorous and lively. A kind of timelessness prevails inside the Hermitage, which allows the 300-year history of Saint Petersburg to be summoned from the achievements of artists in a building and come to life in front of the camera. In the final moments, however, he tells us that whatever happened is buried in this place. In the modern era, there is no imagination, story or meaning left. The camera, which has been sweeping lively and dancing through the museum until now, slowly moves out of the Hermitage. Outside is completely cold and silent. When Chekhov talked about the decline of the aristocracy in his plays, it means that he knew about an impending calamity and had already felt the darkness and cold. In the film, The Stone, we see him in a prophetic figure (with a white robe and in a clear relation with water and light) who, like a ghost in the new age, was summoned to painfully remind of the lost glory of his land: "Tolstoy was wrong. A piece of land alone is not enough for humans. After all, how can a person live in a cemetery? Even if this cemetery is very big. "

Twilight of the Idols

In Goethe's Faust, where Faust decides to commit suicide, there is a latent quality that, although Sokurov's Faust lacks, traces of it are clearly visible in the best moments of his trilogy of power - Moloch, Taurus and The Sun; A dreamy and savior quality that, in tune with the sound of Easter bells, pulls Faust's forgotten childhood out of the recesses of his mind to immerse him in recovered emotions and bring him back to life. There is no doubt that there are echoes of this greatest tragedy of development in Sokurov's interpretation of the lives of Hitler, Hirohito and Lenin, and the mood that Marshall Berman calls Faust's "rebirth" in his reading of the aforementioned scene and considers it "one of the high points of European romanticism", can be traced in the Russian filmmaker's view of the life of the monarchs of his time. "Childhood" is the missing part of Hitler in Moloch and Hirohito in The Sun. The castle where Hitler joined Eva Braun, is like a temple for the leader for meditation and revelation and recovery of his originality. During a short stay in this castle, Hitler is away from the commotion and battle. He neglects rituals and becomes playful and carefree, and does not shy away from showing his mental and physical weaknesses and asking for consolation and pity. The last shot of the film, which captures him inside the narrow and dark space of the car, and Eva Braun in the open, bright and foggy environment outside, is a beautiful portrayal of the führer's pathetic farewell to childhood; Just the opposite of what we see in the final sequence of The Sun: Hirohito is on the verge of leaving the room that is his realm. Upon hearing the news of one of the devotees' hara-kiri, he is stunned for a moment, and he freezes in his place because the death of a devotee also means the end of his godhood. His wife, who in a short and late appearance, has a completely maternal effect, pulls the emperor's hands and encourages him to leave the room. Hirohito runs, hand in hand with the woman, to join his "children". And this is the cinematic interpretation of the liberation moment: The great emperor goes to embrace all of his remaining childhood at once. Through this romantic design, by making the background dim and focusing on the duality of public and private spheres, Sokurov succeeds in creating complex and multifaceted characters; The "characters" that the history of cinema has not taken seriously or believed them as it should; Neither has seen them as human beings nor shown their vulnerable and fragile parts. These parts inevitably evoke sympathy and may bring the audience closer to the disgraces of history. Chaplin and Lubitsch realized that the only way to portray Hitler was through satire. But Sokurov portrays Hitler to explore his psyche. Hitler in Moloch has nothing to do with Chaplin's Hitler, but Hirohito in The Sun reminds the American photographers around him of Chaplin! This reminder for the audience, apart from the small awe and apparent fragility of Hirohito, has another reason, which in the final analysis links the emperor not to The Great Dictator but to Modern Times! As if the ridicule of that famous automatic device is repeated in Hirohito's relationship with the crew who are supposed to facilitate his daily affairs at any moment. They take care of the emperor, dress him and open the doors before he can move his hand. He wishes to turn the door handle or turn on the radio himself. It is this servitude of customs and ceremonies that disgusted him to be a God-like emperor. Like Hirohito, Lenin in Taurus is tired of the constant supervision and care of those around him. This time, Sokurov follows the story by pausing on the physical decay and shrinking of the image of a man in power that artists have always depicted him as a conqueror. Sokurov`s Lenin is a bad-tempered, anxious and disabled madman who, when he messes up the dinner table under the "pretext" of being luxurious, his public-external aspects (claiming to adhere to the ideals of the revolution) are more and more fades against his instinctive-individual desire (projection of fear of disease and death). He is naked (in many scenes) and frank. Sokurov, whose career is full of fantastical and poetic elements, appears here as a rough and inflexible realist until the end. The end of the film, the long reflection of the static camera on Lenin's solitude in the garden, accompanied by the song of birds and in the absence of the crowd that were present until now, has an inexplicable and death-like manifestation; like a moment of deliverance. The sunset of the men of power in Sokurov's cinema has always a sad beauty.

Sailing Forever

Back to Hermitage's exit door: the surrounding world is not yet safe and calm enough for the ship to dock somewhere. The sea is still stormy and turbulent and will not calm down. Apparently, art is the last resort to endure this relentless and endless cold. One should take a shelter in the ship: "We are destined to sail forever".