Faust

Running time: 134 mins

It has intrigued and challenged great artists and their audiences for centuries. Now a modern master of cinema makes the tale of Faust his own.

The concluding film in his tetralogy on the nature of power (following Taurus on Lenin, Moloch on Hitler, and The Sun on Hirohito), Aleksander Sokurov's Faust, grand prizewinner at this year's Venice Film Festival, is simultaneously a radical stylistic departure from the first three and a summation of everything he has learned crafting films, from the early elegies and documentaries, through such abstract masterpieces as Whispering Pages and Mother and Son, to the amazing single-shot Russian Ark.

With this imposing but hugely rewarding work, Sokurov joins Marlowe, Goethe, Gounod, Boito and Murnau, bringing his own masterful cinematic interpretation to this enduring masterpiece of European culture.

- Charlie Cockey

Sponsored by Larry D. Douglas