Alexandre SOKUROV
Александр СОКУРОВ
Alexandre SOKOUROV
USSR, 1983, 110mn 
Colour, fiction
Skorbnoe beschuvstvie
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Скорбное бесчувствие

 

 Painful Indifference

 Une indifférence douloureuse

 
Directed by : Alexandre SOKUROV ( Александр СОКУРОВ)
Writing credits : Yuri ARABOV (Юрий АРАБОВ)
 
Cast
Dmitry BRIANTSEV (Дмитрий БРЯНЦЕВ)
Ramaz CHKHIKVADZE (Рамаз ЧХИКВАДЗЕ) ...Rôle principal
Tatyana_3 EGOROVA (Татьяна_3 ЕГОРОВА)
Alla OSIPENKO (Алла ОСИПЕНКО) ...Rôle principal
Irina SOKOLOVA (Ирина СОКОЛОВА)
Vladimir ZAMANSKY (Владимир ЗАМАНСКИЙ)
Vadim ZHUK (Вадим ЖУК)
 
Cinematography : Sergey YURIZDITSKY (Сергей ЮРИЗДИЦКИЙ)
Production design : Yelena AMSHINSKAYA (Елена АМШИНСКАЯ)
Sound : Vladimir PERSOV (Владимир ПЕРСОВ)
Editing : Leda SEMENOVA (Ледa СЕМЕНОВА)
Companies : Lenfilm
Release Date in Russia : 1987
 

Awards :
FIPRESSI award at the XV International Festival in Moscow, 1987.

Plot synopsis
In the title of this film we have the diagnosis of a mental illness. The title of George Bernard Shaw's play Heartbreak House is a formula–symbol introduced by the great British wit in order to describe Europe before the First World War. The Russian filmmaker discerned and brilliantly developed Russian Chekhovian roots of the play in his saturated with associations cinematographic composition. This was a feast of Sokurov's imagination and an anthology of almost all of his devises to be subsequently developed. Here one could find a model of a set, closely imitating the real surrounding, documentary shots juxtaposed to the deformed image, a mask of Shaw himself, and non–professional performers next to the celebrated Georgian actor Ramaz Tchkhickvadze.
The film had scandalized the powers that be as early as during the process of production which had been several times interrupted and banned by various structures of officialdom — until the film was eventually released in the beginning of Perestroika, in 1987. Perhaps nowadays one of the most important for the director themes — the defenselessness of man, hiding in the house as in a cocoon in the attempt to evade the horrors of history and the problems of existence — sounds more articulately than ever. And the defense — science, technic, culture — civilization — may crash any time and crush 'proud' humankind.
The film took part in the competition program of the XXXVII International Cinema Festival in Western Berlin in 1988.
Alexandra Tuchinskaya
English translation by Anna Shoulgat, © 2002.
Alexander Sokurov
Source : www.sokurov.spb.ru
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2014
- Alexandre Sokourov : des pages cachées, Paris (France), 2010
- Osaka European Film Festival, Osaka (Japan), 2008
- "Vyborg" Russian Film Festival (formerly ''A Window to Europe''), Vyborg (Russia), 2008
- Fall Festival 1998, Paris (France), 1998
- FEMA / La Rochelle International Film Festival, La Rochelle (France), 1993
- Berlin International Film Festival : Berlinale, Berlin (Germany), 1987
- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 1987