FRANCE : CANNES FILM FESTIVAL VIEWS "MOLOCH" - RUSSIAN FILM DIRECTOR ALEXANDR SOKUROV'S INTERPRETATION OF HITLER

Record ID: 388341

  • Title: FRANCE : CANNES FILM FESTIVAL VIEWS "MOLOCH" - RUSSIAN FILM DIRECTOR ALEXANDR SOKUROV'S INTERPRETATION OF HITLER
  • Date: 22nd May 1999
  • Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 15, 1999) (REUTER - ACCESS ALL) GENERIC PICTURES
  • Embargoed: 6th June 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: CANNES, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA6TMXN0NOFIIXOTIF1R7V1D7MY
  • Story Text: As competition grows, Palme d'Or runner Aleksandr Sokurov's bizarre portrayal of Hitler left Cannes perplexed.
    Sokuro's wierd and opaque "Moloch" depicts Hitler as a scatological and hypochondriac nincompoop.
    Other Palme d'Or runners are Iranian film directors Moshsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazl Jalili and Nasser Taghvai for their film
    "Ghess Hay Kish", a serie of three tales taking place in a tiny island in the Persian Gulf.
    Russian director Alexandr Sokurov presented his film
    "Moloch" at the Film Festival on Saturday (May 15), a wierd film which is in the official competition..
    His film takes place in a glomy mountain-top hideaway perpetually shrouded in mist, presumably Berchtesgaden.
    Sokurov depicts Hitler (Leonid Mosgovoi) who has a sexless and disconnected relationship with his mistressa Eva Brown (Elena Rufanova) who kicks him in the derriere, insults him and flirts with a smelly Martin Boorman.Yet, she is the human being and he is the monster.
    Hitler is not aware of the existence of Auschwitz.Everyone else in the theatrical psychodrama does know though, and hides it from him, as if appeasing a child.
    Several levels of colour are stripped from the image, giving the film a monochromatic, timeworn look, while the atmosphere is cold and suffocating.
    Sokurov, whose works were banned in Russia until 1986, said that the political and artistic methods were dangerous for the society.For him the cinema may be even more dangerous than anything else.
    "If we take into account the totalitary nature of the cinema, we can admit that it is very dangerous for the society especially for the democratic society." he said.
    Other Palme d'Or runners are Iranian film directors Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazi Jalili and Nasser Taghvai who presented their film "Ghess Hay Kish" at the Film Festival on Saturday (May 15).
    "Ghess Hay Kish", a charming little omnibus film, is a trio of films : "The Door" by director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, "The Ring" by Abolfaz Jalili and "The Greek Door" by Nasser Taghvai.
    "The Greek Boat" by Nasser Taghvai tells the story of workers on the Kish Island who go regularly to the sea to gather up bottles, crates, boxes, sometimes valuable objects that have been thrown overboard by ships.
    One family dries out the crates to build a house.But when the wife gathers some objects left by a passing Greek merchant ship, she is later struck down by a strange illness that the village medical-man claims came from the Greek vessel.
    "The Ring" by Abolfaz Jalili describes the fate of a young man from the rural mainland who arrives illegally on the island to find work.When his sister writes to say she needs a modest piece of jewellery, the young man is determined to raise the money needed to buy it.
    Jalili concentrated his film on human beings who he said are
    "far more important than space".For him human beings are influencing the society and are changing it.
    The final part, "The Door" by Mohsen Makhmalbaf is a lyrical impressionistic sketch of a man tramping across the dunes with a wooden door on his back, followed by his young sister with a goat in tow.When the two youngsters reach the sea, they meet a man who offers to buy the door which is a valuable piece of antiques.
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