Popular reviews

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★

  Serious questions about art and preservation, and it's relationship to politics and how culture has shaped perception of history pre-21st Century. Rethinking history through the digital - I was reminded of Godard's The Image Book, but instead of cutting between footage (that Godard had more often than not already used, lol) we leap between Sokurov at his desk on Skype, the other side of the Skype conversation on that screen, silent stock footage with words dubbed, that same stock footage playing on a computer screen, historical recreations as narrative, the interior of the Louvre, the paintings within the Louvre, and dreamlike fantasies of historical figures wandering around the Louvre, discussing those paintings. Deeply intricate - at first it impresses because…

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  Review by 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕞 (𝕃𝕖𝕠) 𝕧𝕒𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕣 ℤ𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕟 ★★★½

  Added to: Alexander Sokurov Ranked & 2015 Ranked

  An absolutely gorgeous essay on art during wartime. The playful nature Sokurov infuses in this otherwise highly didactic piece of cinema is an absolute delight. Different time periods flow into each other like ones mind does while walking through a museum, drifting from one piece of art to the next. Time is both of the utmost importance in Sokurov's work and the last thing he seems to care about. What he wants is to show and tell about an absolute passion of his and he does so with the delicate touch of a master painter himself, dissecting the smallest little tidbits to recount this aptly named elegy for Europe. It's one, big, overarching…

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  Review by Mike Kennedy ★★★ 1

  I liked the idea of Russian writer/director Aleksandr Sokurov’s essay film more than I did its execution.  Sokurov uses live action, animation, archival film footage and photographs, and CGI sequences to illustrate his voiceover thoughts on the significance of Art and, in particular, pre-20th century European art history.  “Where would we be without museums?” Sokurov asks at one point.

  The central part of the case Sokurov makes is the history of the Louvre under the Nazi Occupation from 1940 to 1944 when an unlikely collaboration between museum Director Jacques Jaujard (Louis-do de Lencquesaing) and German officer Count Franziskus Wolff-Metternich (Benjamin Utzerath) forestalls the removal of the Louver’s treasures to Nazi Germany.  Sokurov sets up this story with a very clever…

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  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★½

  Bonaparte is the funniest thing in the film, naturally enough. He's vexed at the Prussians who appear to be in his museum (the Nazis from the recreation) and he loves standing by the great paintings and declaring "It's me" like a megalomaniacal twitter meme. A comprehensive look at the museum and its history is of course impossible, so Sokurov focuses on the areas that interest him most: a collection of Assyrian artifacts, a 9,000 year old sculpture of a human figure from the Jordanian desert, paintings of the museum itself, of people touring its galleries and observing its works, a myriad of human faces in portrait. This latter section inspires the film's most fascinating rumination, as he speculates about what he (incorrectly) deems a uniquely European obsession with portraiture, and whether our ability to see what people look like hundreds of years ago changes our view of ourselves.

  More at Seattle Screen Scene.

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★½

  Francofonia feels like a collection of many elements Sokurov has hit through the years (as usual he excels in suggesting a specific time and place and representing it as if hunted), it less punishing than most and despite his ambitions never quite cohere even before I get into my usual misgivings about him as a historian.

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  Review by Michael Sicinski ★★★½

  [7]

  My capsule review for Cinema Scope's TIFF coverage:

  [SPOILER: James Franco does not appear in this film.]

  There was no reason to expect something playful from Sokurov, especially after his excruciating take on Faust (2011). But with Francofonia we find Russia’s melancholic master offering up an essay-film take on the Louvre that’s downright breezy. After setting up a contemporary framing story that has Sokurov in his office, Skyping and then losing contact with a ship’s captain named Dirk (don’t ask, doesn’t matter), the director starts waxing philosophical on Western culture and the role of museums in preserving it. While Francofonia has very little to offer on the subject that’s new, Sokurov is spry and chatty and keeps things continually…

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  Review by russman ★★½

  Movies about museums should only be done in one shot

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  Review by Jay Sherman ★★★★

  If you love art, this film is for you. Aleksandr Sokurov's latest effort and (sort-of) sequel to Russian Ark focuses on my favorite museum in the world, the Louvre and the nazi occupation off of it. The story is told in an untraditional manner (as to be expected from Sokurov) and it is hard to follow at parts. However, it is still a powerful piece of filmmaking about how important art is for our existence.

  77/100

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  Review by PuRock ★★★

  Pretentious? Definitely. But how else is one supposed to create a living history of The Louvre, complete with the Nazi occupation of France? Especially when considering it's a multi-national project that's helmed by Russian Ark director Aleksandr Sokurov. Who now has two historic museums under his belt, The Hermitage and The Louvre.

  Francofonia is at times interesting, and very often artistic, but also has it's moments of extreme bore. Sokurov seemed intent on focusing on the art of the film, and not the art its supposed to be covering. He makes some bizarre choices as if he's inspired by Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma. All in all, a mixed bag of uniqueness.

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  Review by Michael Casey ★★★

  Comprised mainly of documentary footage of the Louvre, Francofonia is part history, part fiction and part musing. Sokurov narrates while his camera floats over the rooftops of Paris, down the halls of the Louvre and fluidly through time where the past collides with the present as Sokurov constructs the museum’s narrative by incorporating actors in historical costumes throughout the halls — S.S. Nazi soldiers admire grand works of art, Napoleon (Vincent Nemeth) leads the camera to the painting of his coronation and an Ally soldier chases a girl through the streets of Paris, passing 21st century bicyclists and backpackers.

  In these moments, Sokurov voices his commentary on the past, art and the nature of preserving culture. Though his questions hold…

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  Review by Zach Cheney ★★★★★

  I can't do better than Charles Mudede on this, especially his point about the gut punch that is Sokurov's shift from Paris to Leningrad, from the Louvre to the Hermitage. Already the film has blurred easy distinctions between narrative and documentary, and disregarded any obligation to follow history in a linear fashion, à la Russian Ark. A favorite moment here is when Sokurov interviews Jaujard and Wolff-Metternich together, revealing their fates to them in the very midst of an otherwise eternal present.

  Sokurov comes right out and relentlessly asks questions, then blasts you with montages of the most Eisensteinian variety. Francofonia's shearing of shots and strategic fusing of images paradoxically weds it with Russian Ark's long take (easily the greatest…

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  Review by Jaime Grijalba ★★★½

  Francofonia (2015)

  7/10

  Let's open every door in the building and let every idea in, but let's not close any door and let's not ever talk again about the doors. What doors? Did they matter? Interesting in long stretches, but I fail to understand what is the reasoning behind all of this. Particularly interesting when he apparently seems to intersect war and museums, their need and seemingly symbiotic existence. The rest of the time, it's mostly a show-off between the things that Sokurov likes and the playful style he has exercised throughout the years.