Country: Russia
Year: 1999
Duration: 108'
In 1942, in a fortress in the Bavarian Alps, Adolf Hitler pays a visit to his lover Eva Braun, accompanied by Joseph and Magda Goebbels and Martin Bormann. The day unfolds monotonously, between vegetarian meals and walks in the mountains, paradoxical discussions and lovers’ spats, Richard Wagner and newsreels exalting the Nazi victories. Hitler is a childish, paranoid hypochondriac, his Fascist party leaders are jealous, grotesque servants, while Eva alone has the courage to be impertinent to her boss. The night passes away quickly, Hitler leaves to be “the father of the nation” again and the woman is alone once again in the deserted fortress. Restored in Lenfilm Cinestudios.
Biography
film director
Aleksandr Sokurov
Alexander Sokurov (Podorvicha, Russia, 1951) studied cinema at VGIK in Moscow but left before completing his studies because of contrasts with the Goskino. In 1980 he began working at Lenfil’m, but only after perestroika could the films he made during this period be seen, like his debut film The Lonely Voice of Man (1978). In 1985 he inaugurated the series of Elegies and in the 1990’s he experimented with digital technology in A Humble Life (1997) and Dolce (1999). He received world-wide recognition with Mother and Son (1997), Moloch (1999), Russian Ark (2002), The sun (2005). In 2003 the Torino Film Festival dedicated a complete retrospective to his work.
FILMOGRAFIA
filmografia essenziale/
essential filmography
Odinokiy golos cheloveka (The Lonely Voice of Man, 1978), Razˇalovannyj (Degraded, cm, 1980), Dni zatmenija (The Days of Eclipse, 1988), Spasi i sochrani (Save and Protect, 1989), Krug vtoroj (The Second Circle, 1990), Kamen’ (The Stone, 1992), Tichie stranicy (Whispering Pages, 1993), Mat’i syn (Madre e figlio, 1997), Moloch (id., 1999), Dolce (1999), Telec (Taurus, 2001), Russkij kovˇceg (Arca russa, 2002), Otec i syn (Father and Son, 2003), Mozart Requiem (doc., 2004), Solnze (Il sole, 2005), Eleghia zhizni. Rostropoviˇc. Vishnevskaya (2006), Aleksandra (id., 2007).
Declaration
film director
“Today, the screening of the restored version of Moloch at the TFF is very important for me. Important, because it bears vivid testimony to the reawakening of the movie, it is an act of faith and respect toward me, it represents attention to and solidarity for a complex European theme; it is also a recognition of the need to artistically impersonate the past. I would like to underline its artistic, non-polemical, and up-to-date focus; artistic, above all. It truly supports the programmatic principle (that is so little widespread) when approaching the profession of movie director.”
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR: Aleksandr Sokurov. STORY, SCREENPLAY: Jurij Arabov, Marina Koreneva. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Aleksej Fëdorov, Anatolij Rodionov. FILM EDITING: Leda Semënovav. SET DESIGN: Sergej Kokovkin. COSTUME DESIGN: Lidija Kriukova. SOUND: Hartmut Eichgrün. CAST: Elena Rufanova, Leonid Mozgovoj, Leonid Sokol, Elena Spiridonova, Vladimir Bogdanov, Anatolij àvederskij. PRODUCERS: Thomas Kufus, Viktor Sergeev. PRODUCTION: Lenfil’m, Zero Film, Fusion Product, Fabrica, ARTE/WDR, Filmboard Berlin/Brandenburg GmbH, Fondation Montecinemaverit.
CONTACT: LenFilm - Konstantin Borisovich Shavlovsky shavlovsky@gmail.com