Summary: With Faust, Alexander Sokurov completes his cinematic tetralogy based on the lives of historical figures, which began with studies of Adolf Hitler (Moloch, 1999), Vladimir Lenin (Taurus, 2000) and Emperor Hirohito (The Sun, 2005). His new film delves deeper into the nature of power with a unique take on Goethe's classic tale. The winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2011, Sokurov's interpretation of the myth is not an adaptation in the usual sense, but what he describes as a 'reading of what remains between the lines'. Here Faust is a thinker, a mouthpiece for ideas, a transmitter for words, a schemer and a daydreamer. He is an anonymous man driven by simple instincts: hunger, greed and lust. Sokurov asks us to question how this literary character informs our understanding of the real tyrants who abused their position of power, and how an unhappy life can lead some to be seduced by monstrous ideologies.
