Jesus gets a cameo in Alexander Sokurov's Fairytale
The newest film from the director of Russian Ark is about four World War II leaders in Purgatory – but there are other historical figures in the mix, too.
Alexander Sokurov—the Russian filmmaker who may be best known for 2002’s Russian Ark, an epic tour through history that was shot in a single 96-minute take—has just released his first new film in seven years, and once again, it’s an experimental look at historical figures, accomplished this time through “deepfake” technology.
The film, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland this weekend, is called Fairytale, and it’s primarily about World War II leaders Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Churchill, who meet each other in Purgatory—or something like it—and spend their time grumbling about petty, mundane things while waiting to see if there’s any sort of final judgment awaiting them. Various critics have said the tone of the film is like a weird mix of Dante’s Divine Comedy and Monty Python.
And apparently it all begins with an exchange between Stalin and Jesus, the latter of whom may be just as stuck in this afterlife as the other characters are.
Here is how Guy Lodge at Variety describes the film’s opening scene:
The tone is set straight out the gate, as we’re introduced to Stalin lying in state, grumbling aloud that he hasn’t died and never will. Across from him, nobly wounded on a plainer slab, is Jesus Christ: “Get up, you idler,” Stalin admonishes him, before setting out himself on a tour of this gray, charcoal-smeared netherworld . . .
David Jenkins at Little White Lies puts it thus:
The body of Josef Stalin is seen lying in state, but then he begins to talk. He glances over to the body on the slab across the room. It’s Jesus, who engages the Communist godhead in a comically squeaky voice.
Redmond Bacon at DMovies writes:
God’s own son lies in a somnambulant posture, unable to get up. One suspects he took a look at the world after the Second World War and believed a long lie-down was necessary. Stalin instantly tells him to get up, making a nebulous comparison between Christianity and communism. It’s the first of many one-line statements in a film jam-packed with odd aphorisms. Don’t expect genuine insight, but a sustained mood — a universe that is uncanny and provocative, asking the viewer to bring their own feelings to the world Sokurov creates.
And Neil Young at Screen Daily writes:
Stalin (voiced by Vakhtang Kuchava) stirs in what appears to be his mausoleum, grouching and kvetching from his very first lines. His interlocutor turns out to be none other than Jesus Christ (voice-performer uncredited), the pair apparently waiting in a kind of purgatorial limbo before being allowed access to Heaven (or perhaps relegation to a hotter destination). This very world-weary Christ only pops up occasionally afterwards, the bulk of the running time consisting of Stalin ambling slowly through dizzyingly vast and high Piranesi-style semi-ruined buildings while Hitler (Lothar Deeg and Tim Ettelt), Mussolini (Fabio Mastrangelo) and Churchill (Alexander Sagabashi and Michael Gibson) do the same.
Several critics say the film may try the patience of its viewers, even though it’s only 78 minutes long. It sounds like the four main characters have been made so trivial, now that they have been cut off from their place in human history, that the film itself may have trouble sustaining its own audience’s interest. But if the film is about death stripping away all pretense of glory and exposing the hollow soul underneath, then that’s a concept worth exploring, at least, however well it’s executed.
Suffice it to say I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one at the local festivals.
Here is the movie’s trailer: