Save and Protect

Sokúrov found an existential argument in the novel “Madame Bovary”, by Flaubert and made of this the line of narrative in this feature. Here Emma Bovary speaks French to all of her Russian lovers and becomes a woman totally estranged to the environment she lives in. The Russian film maker creates metaphors that are absolutely cinematographic and tragic, in this case adopting as a key-word, “duty”, a term dear to him and that is to take on different meanings in his masterpiece. In Sokúrov films, all of the characters have a duty they must answer to in their lifetime. Erotic duty weighs on poor Emma (as seen by Sokúrov), that will render her a kind of lost, solitary demon. “Save and Protect is a philosophical drama where amorous suffering is seen as a manifestation of a catastrophic nature of human existence. Man is but a blind being, wandering to and fro from birth to death”, says Sokúrov.

Was born in 1951 in the city of Podorvikha, Russia. His work, even as a student, was unacceptable to Russian bureaucracy, and he was accused of formalism and of assuming "anti-Soviet views". His first feature, The Lonely Human Voice (1978, 26th Mostra) was refused as a graduating project by the VGIK, the Russian Cinema Institute. Sokurov`s films were shown in Brazil since 1997, at the 21st Mostra, with Mother and Son. He had a retrospective of 33 of his films at 26th Mostra, when was also released the first book in Portuguese about his work, Aleksandr Sokúrov, by publishing house Cosac Naify. Among his most important films are Dolce (1999, 24th Mostra), Elegy of a Voyage (2001, 25th Mostra), The Russian Arc (2002, 26th Mostra), Father and Son (2003, 27th Mostra) Alexandra (2007, 32nd Mostra), in addition to the films that complete the Power Tetralogy: Moloch (1999, 23rd Mostra) about Hitler; Taurus, about Lenin (2001, 26th Mostra), and The Sun, about the Japanese emperor Hirohito (2005, 30th Mostra).

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA