Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

domdel39 First off, the film (video) looks horrid. I'm not saying that this is a result of incompetence. No, rather, the filmmakers clearly wanted their movie to look like this. Why? No idea. There isn't a decent shot to be seen. They also chose to use a distorting lens for long stretches. Unbelievably, that choice made the movie look even worse then it already had. This is the second film I've seen of this filmmaker's and, most likely, the last. At least, "Moloch" looked okay. There were even a few decent shots. Not here. Opening the film with a long, dreary autopsy scene was probably not the wisest choice. Beware!

Wim Nijssen The way Sokurov treats this story makes it clear that his characters are all immersed in the day tot day doings, the earthly aspects of our lives, and it is hard or even impossible to escape. He brings it home to us, he gets us involved through his camera and sound, Faust becomes us. The first time I know of that this story was told in such a way that we can actually get inside Faust. Sokurov brings home some intriguing themes. Is Faust's soul maybe already missing from the start? What is our perception of Faust's hell and/or heaven, and how easy are we manipulated? We don't seem to need a lot of arguments and talking to win us over...

Radu_A Well, I have to admit that I've never been much of a fan of Sokurov's work. Rather on the contrary, I've considered all of his films which I've seen fairly tedious. But, as in the case of 'Russian Ark', one cannot deny his talent for opulent visuals and creative camera movement. However, how one could possibly deem this very loose adaptation of 'Faust' laudable is completely beyond me - because there are far superior film versions of this well-known story, first and foremost among them Murnau's.What has always bothered me about Sokurov is derogatory treatment of female characters and use of superfluous or gruesome details - in this case best exemplified by the opening shot of a man's penis, then revealed to be that of a corpse in the process of being harvested by Faust for research. Or a totally unnecessary scene involving two drunken Russians. All women here are mere furniture, especially Gretchen, who hardly appears enough to merit even a reduction to an object of desire. Instead, there are endless interchanges between a bewildered, impoverished Faust and a less-than-impressive Mephisto, who is portrayed more as a salesman than a demon, thereby depriving the tale of much of its zest, and unduly limiting the means of expression of the actor - definitely the worst Mephistopheles I've ever seen on either screen or stage.What I find absolutely unforgivable though is the altered ending, which takes excessive liberty with the tale as it is - and I'm not talking about Goethe, even though it is already quite preposterous to title the film as an adaptation of Goethe's Faust, and then but quote a few lines from the play. While art, of course, is at liberty to interpret the lore of culture freely, one cannot let Romeo and Juliet live, for instance, because then the whole point of the story is gone.That is pretty much what Sokurov does to Faust here - for the sake of demonstrating his ability as a director, he changes the entire story to the extent of being unidentifiable, with no regard to the audience, or just about any definition of taste. Unfortunately, such creative sadism meets with the masochism of entrenched festival juries, preferring the old and tiresome over the young and relevant, which to me is about the only explanation how this self-indulgent, boring, dreadful piece could win the Golden Lion - notwithstanding the fact that this award has already lost much of its luster.

enteredapprenticering This adaption orients itself on the original and legendary character of Dr. Faustus, but not in the Goethe version. As Dr. Faust is not an invention of Goethe, but actually a 15th century German legendary character, Sokurov portrays here the original story at its source. Faust is not driven by the wish to gain esoteric knowledge, but knowledge of how to seduce Margarethe as quickly as possible. Here lies the core: ANY character, even the ones that are not relevant to the story at all, is portrayed suffering from heavy psychological disorders. You name it, you find it: phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, delusional disorder, schizoaffective disorder, antisocial personality, borderline personality, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders, even paraphilia (sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are considered abnormal or harmful to the person or others) is displayed by Mephisto, who is shown in this adaption as Moneylender. Wagner, who is Faust's student is shown suffering from classic ego-dystonic sexual orientation. This is actually what the whole adaption seems to be about: showing various characters with heavy psychological disorders who are fitted together in the story-line of the legendary character Dr. Faustus. The idea that Sokorov seems to have intended to portray is that the sexual force is the actual driving force of not only Dr. Faustus, but of most people in the sense of a primal force. My personal feeling is that the portrayal of psychological disorders is not helping to give the story-line of the legendary Dr. Faustus more appeal, but is as depiction of the human soul as dark cabinet unique as such and Faustian in itself as adaption. If you enjoy viewing a world of heavily disturbed personalities that are credibly acted out, this is your movie. If you want to see a movie that saves you reading Goethe's Faust, go find another movie. My vote: 6.5 of 10.