The two polar components of the language of cinema – documentary realism and lyricism – are both equally present and integrated in the works of Russian film–maker Alexander Sokurov. Snatches of real life, shot recently and long ago, have been incorporated into both his documentaries and feature films in unrestrained poetic compositions.

In Elegy from Russia Sokurov and his colleagues, cameraman Alexander Burov and sound engineer Vladimir Persov, have constructed a film without stitches or knots; they have spun a single thread whose course reveals a new and unusual outlook on the world.

Images of underwater life, the frozen surface of the water in the year’s first frost, followed by the image of a warmly swaddled and sleeping baby are not a haphazard arrangement of contrasting shots – they represent the phenomena of an epoch. They are interwoven, they melt into one another, like images in sleep. They are the phenomena of time, of our life.

These images and sounds are poetic metaphors that transform Elegy from Russia into a document that provides an emotional–historical “memory bank” for all those who see this film.

Alexandra Tuchinskaya, The Island of Sokurov
Translation: Nora Hoppe, Benjamin Halligan.

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Film Title : Elegy from Russia
Language : venäjä
Director : Aleksandr Sokurov
Year : 1993
Length : 68
Age limit : K7
Format : DCP
Cinematographer : Aleksandr Burov
Editing : Leda Semyonova
Production Company : Studio Bereg
Title in Original Language : Элегия из России

Screenings :
Tue 28.1. at 16.15, Orion