SOKUROV'S VICTORY AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Sokurov, a Real European Filmmaker
Сокуров, правдивы Европейский режиссер
Sokurov, un vero regista europeo 
Sokurov, un véritable cinéaste européen
Sokurov, ein wahrer europaeischer Regisseur

A very important event which has characterised the last week has been the award of the "Golden Lion", at the Venice film festival, for his film "Faust".

We have always thought that Sokurov is the only living "European" filmmaker, in the sense that he considers his task to make films which contribute to the definition of European Identity.

He can achieve this goal by  the most different means, from his  investigations about power and history, or through his debate with great characters of Russian culture, such as Solzhenitsin, Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevkaya. Sometimes, like in the case of Russian Arch, he has been confronted with the idea itself of a mutual cultyural exchange between Russia and Europe. As it is known, the Russian Arch portrays the Ermitage in Sankt-Petersburg as a connecting point between Western and Eastern, Ancient and new Europe, which the Great Catherine left in heritage to all of us, in order to preserve the core of European culture from the threats of history.

Sokurov is pessimist about the future of European (including Russian) culture:"Germans, French, Britons, Italians, tell me: we have money, but we have no ideas.But, then, form when did come Leonartdo da Vinci, Salinger, Remarque, Hemingway? Why have young people no ideas today?Why 90% of cameramen in Europe, who are women, carry heavy cameras?Why Faust is interesting for me, why it is for me a content of my life, why I go threough these  materials, and I devoted to it my whole life, whilst no German filmmaker took care of it?I talk with German journalists: 'Faust?How boring'.That's all."(Interview with Stas Tyrkin for Komsomolskaya Pravda za Rubezhom, 16-23 September 2011, page 25).

Certainly, we cannot share all the views of Sokurov about the future. He is worried by the alternative constituted by Islam.:"They will read and learn the Koran within a couple of years."And, further: "Certainly, the only waybrings to the Koran. An absolutely destructive, revolutionary way. Muslim youth is marked by energy, by the capability and the will to solve problems radically. Islam is complex. It is not a centralized culture. There is neither a Pope, nor a Patriarch, there is no center towards which people can focus for discussion. Islamic culture is dispersed, not unified. Therefore, it's impossible to come to an end with al-Qaida. The only alternative is to reinforce our culture, to stuck to it, to follow an evolutionary approach, to take care of the feelings of youth. No other way out, both for the European and for the Russian civilisation."."Albeit there are sacred books, which have given names to all things, there are, in our culture, deeply doubtful people. You cannot find this in the muslim or in the buddhistic world. There, an holistic world view prevails."

It is true that the lack of ideas by Europeans (and also Russians) favours the penetration of foreign cultures. However, first, we do't find that Islam is so different from Christianity, and, second, we do bot think that Europeans are so much ready to convert. According to us, the real danger, for Europe,an (and Russian) does not lie in Islam, which will have all its difficulties to affirm itself as aleading European religion, but, on the contrary, by the excesses of science and of technique, which are arising from mankind all characteristics which have traditionally brandmarked it.

Irrespective of what we think about the appropriatedness of these visions of Sokurov, he remains, for us, an example of a true, and engaged, European intellectual, who is not afraid to raise a debate, and  whose intellectual contribution we will be always obliged to take into account.

We have not  yet seen Sokurov's Faust (and it will take time to have it on the screens, even in Russia). From what we have read, it would appear that   he has tried precisely that task that we would like all European filmmakers to do, but that no one of them is undertaking, i.e., trying to revitalise the big classics of European renoun, through an updated reading, which stresses the pan-european character of those masterpieces. Fuast is one of those masterpieces which have a "transversal" meaning. for all peoples of Europe and for the most different mindsets (classic and romantic, modern and postmodern).

Moreover, Sokurov has pursued the above objectives precisely in the way we would have expected: he has produced his film in German, with a Pan-European cast, working in the Czech Republic and in Iceland.

Sakurov's victory has been achieved at the unanimity of the Jury, against films which are rather inspired to the mainstream of commercial production. The Jury has chosen, by this way, the traditional European way of "upper culture" production.

Now, the challenge is to follow up this achievement, studying Sokurov's works and drawing, from it, lessons for the future of European culture and arts.

It is not said that we share always Sokurov's points of view. So, for instance,,

So,let's wait anxiously fo the opportunity of seeing the film.