On February 9th “Faust” by Alexander Sokurov will be released in Russia. The movie took the grand prix at the 68th International Venice Film Festival. This is his fourth work on the tetralogy of power: “Moloch” – “Taurus” – “The Sun” – “Faust.”
According to the scriptwriter of “Faust”, Yuri Arabov, this tetralogy is about vanity and pride, which give birth to horrible features of this world, especially when vanity and pride are supported by the state and receive the apparatus of power in the face of state institutions and mechanisms. “Molokh” is the story of Eva Braun, who is trying to reach the heart of Hitler. “Taurus” is also vanity and pride that got the chance of improvement through disease. “The Sun” is about how the Japanese emperor, in refusing his divine status, gave prospects not only to his own life but to the whole country. And “Faust” completes these stories about vanity and pride, about evil, with a diagnosis of why it is happening.
Arabov thinks that the plot of Goethe’s play is international, as long as culture has a division between good and evil. That is why the story of Faust is never too old. However, Arabov tried to show it in connection to the changed notion of the deal. Goethe’s story is about Faust - it is a story of Mephistopheles seducing an intellectual who came close to understanding the meaning of things but did not succeed. The filmmakers say that today it is man who seduces the devil. In the script Mephistopheles is a money–lender, he is connected with money, who cooperates with a man, and loses his perception of duty and good.
Yuri Arabov told about difficulties with the ending. In the first version Faust became a bigger evil than Mephistopheles. But Sokurov did not like it, he said that they needed something sharper. The second ending included an episode where Faust beats up Mephistopheles. Something sharper. It was closer. In the end Sokurov chose the stoning of this small devil, who became a speck of dust and something unimportant compared to the evil incarnated in Faust.
