| The story of a young man who travels to a small
village in coldest Siberia to take care of his father’s funeral.
Through epic simplicity and chronological accuracy, the mundane
rituals of burial take on universal significance without losing
its cultural specificity. For the son, the death of his father is
more than a personal loss; he also sees the final balance of his
father’s life as an extension of his whole society. This is
an unforgettable masterpiece filmed in a luminous palette of muted
colors, and a penetrating confrontation with death in a society
that has lost touch with spiritual values. Sokurov’s chosen
themes – conscience, spirituality, and transcendence –
and his visual and poetic approach to filmmaking surely make him
the artistic heir to Andrei Tarkovsky.
”A starkly beautifully, awesomely impressive
exercise in purely visual cinema shot through with the subtles streak
of bleak absurdist humor. “
– Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
“Sokurov is perhaps the most ambitious
and original serious filmmaker of his generation”.
– Susan Sontag
“Rarely has so much visual and emotional
power been generated through such deliberately limited means; the
film is extreme in its rigor, its sobriety and its sublimity.”
– David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor |
