Customer Reviews

Alexander Sokurov: Moscow Elegy - Andrei Tarkovsky

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The documentary genre does not necessarily mean "objectiveness" or "accuracy", it can also explore a chunk of reality, carving it with the acute eye of the artist, that renders a production full of spirituality.

This is the approach of Alexander Sokurov; this work does not intend to be a biographical documentary to be shown broadly on TV. As an "Elegy" (Mournful poem or song lamenting a dead person) it is a look into the feelings of the author and his own sorrow concerning a friend and a master's death.

Sokurov uses excerpts form "Voyage in Time" and "Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice)" and extremely significant parts from "The Mirror", "Nostalghia" and "The Sacrifice". Through this and the use of some shots from Russia, and specially of places where Tarkovsky and his family lived, Sokurov captures the nostalgic feeling of Tarkovsky as he left the Soviet Union to continue with the difficult task of delivering serious films to the world.

This is a tribute from one great filmmaker to another. Sokurov captures the feeling of the loss of a friend and a genius and expresses it through images, photos, and excerpts of Tarkovsky's life and films. This is accompanied by sacred and classical music (Bach during his funeral in France).

If such an approach to documentaries appeals to you, you will enjoy this work. "Spiritual Voices" is also to be reccomended as a poethic approach to the documentary genre.

Excerpts from Chris Marker's footage of T. directing the filming of the Sacrifice is the main reason to watch this. As an "elegy" I find this unsuccessful: moody shots of various holy Tarkovsky sites in winter, uninhabited, while music swells. Almost no intentions here at all beyond display of "feeling" about Tarkovskys tragic life that comes off as pretentious. That the director be treated as a self-evident saint is what its about. A wonderful documentary to seek out instead would be Andrei Tarkovsky's: Voyage in Time shot in Italy around the making of Nostalghia; that one I would watch over and over.

Sokurov is genearally hailed as the spiritual heir and successor to Tarkovsky's cinematic accomplishments. I wouldn't rate this biopic as the place to make such assessments, and, in fact, the best sections of the patchworked document are shot by people other than the director. Chris Maker's bio. gives a better grasp. But, sadly, the serious disappointment I have with the work is that, given what I presumed to be greater familiarity with his 'master', the shared language, and his own cinementic achievements, how the tone and depth of the work flits about the surface of its subject, unwilling to do any investigative probing of 'great man's' motivations and flaws. The position Tarkovsky held as spiritual avatar from behind the iron curtain is no longer tenable, nor serves him well. His relevance resides in forming and expressing a language that bespeaks the anxieties bedevilling advanced societies the world over. There's too much, here, on the misunderstood, exiled artist, making sacrifices in the pursuit of 'truth', which surely is in his written and spoken accounts, but is well and truly in need of challenging and developing.

Sokurov really got it right with Russian Ark, but everything else that is available in the US, not so thrilling (though, Moloch is kind of interesting). The best parts of this documentry would be the footage lifted from Tarkovsky's Voyage in Time. Russian Ark is hardly enough to anoint him as "Tarkovsy's spiritual heir," whatever that means. Get everything available by Tarkovsky first, and if you have any money left try this.