Alexandre SOKUROV
Александр СОКУРОВ
Alexandre SOKOUROV
Russia / Germany, 1997, 73mn 
Colour, fiction
Mother and Son
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Мать и сын

 

 Mère et Fils

 Mat i syn

 
Directed by : Alexandre SOKUROV ( Александр СОКУРОВ)
Writing credits : Yuri ARABOV (Юрий АРАБОВ)
 
Cast
Aleksey ANANISHNOV (Алексей АНАНИШНОВ) ...Le fils
Gurdun GUEYER (Гудрун ГЕЙЕР) ...La mère
 
Cinematography : Aleksey FEDOROV (Алексей ФЕДОРОВ)
Production design : Vera ZELINSKAYA (Вера ЗЕЛИНСКАЯ)
Sound : Vladimir PERSOV (Владимир ПЕРСОВ)
Production : Lenfilm, Severny Fond (Северный Фонд)/ Zero-Film (Allemagne)
 
format : 35 mm
Sites : Allociné, IMDb
Release date in France : 1998-02-04, Site

Awards :
Siver Award Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 1997
Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics Prize Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 1997
FIPRESCI Prize Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 1997
Prix spécial du Jury Oecuménique à Berlin, 1997
Prix de la Confédération internationale des arts cinématographiques, 1997
Prix Andreï Tarkovski, 1997
Grand prix spécial du Saint-George d’argent pour « la contribution à l’élargissement des frontières de l’art du cinéma », 1998
Prix du cavalier de bronze de Lenfilm, 1998

Plot synopsis
In the film Mother and Son the director presents the theme of meeting and parting of the two dearest to each other people as initially tragic. Death — the moment when a man breaks off his relations with Mother-Nature — is interpreted not as a natural stage of life cycle but as a hand of Fate that eventually gets hold of a man. The stage where the tragedy takes place is the Earth, the characters — the mother and the son, always and everywhere lonely and bound to each other by the fear of losing each other. Their faces are marked by different genetic codes. The son is Alexei Ananishnov, the principle character of Days of Eclipse, his mother — Gudrun Geyer, an emancipated European woman. But they both belong to the same Home.
Sokurov who is inclined to shoot set models of a reduced size and thus to create a whimsical 'play on scales', in this film shoots a model of Home, a real size building in Russian fields. At the same time a huge open pit through which the hero's way to the depths of the Earth lied was shot in Germany. The road from Home is also the road to Home where Mother and Son lie in the same deathbed-cradle.
Alexandra Tuchinskaya , http://sokurov.spb.ru
 

Commentaries and bibliography
Мать и отец как субъекты любви в кинодискурсе Александра Сокурова [Père et mère comme objet d'amour dans les films d'Alexandre Sokourov], Евгений ФРЯНЦЕВ, Routine, 2023
Alexandre Sokourov, François ALBERA, Mishel ESTEVE, CinémaAction, Editions Charles Corlet, 2009
Mère et fils d'Alexandre Sokourov, Jean-Luc LACUVE, cineclubdecaen.com, 2008
Mère et fils d’Alexandre Sokourov, Marion FROGER, Ciné-Bulles, vol. 17, n° 3, 1998, p. 51-53., 1998
 
“The story is about an ideal human relationship — about love and deep affection between a mother and her son. Neither she nor he loves anybody in this world as much as they love each other. Their love is almost physically palpable, it is the edge, the limit of love, but only beyond it something true lies. It seems that those two are the only people on the entire Earth — no routine, no bustle, no unnecessary things, just a wooden house in the country where the seriously ill mother and her loving son lead a quiet life… To a certain extent the mother and the son are one single creature plunged into the strange and beautiful world of eternal Nature, the world which either has never been visited by Man (and thus nothing has been spoilt) or was forever abandoned by Man long-long ago…”
Alexander Sokurov (from the author's annotation)

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Russian or Soviet films awarded at Berlin, Cannes or Venice, kinoglaz.fr (France), 2023
- Russian Film Festival For Another Russia, Paris (France), 2020
- The Russian Masters, Montreal (Canada), 2012
- Cycle Alexandre Sokourov au cinéma Grand Action, Paris (France), 2012
- Haifa International Film Festival, Haifa (Israel), 2012
- Nantes Russian Film Festival, Nantes (France), 1999
- Fall Festival 1998, Paris (France), 1998
- Release in France of the film, Different cities (France), 1998-02-04
- Berlin International Film Festival : Berlinale, Berlin (Germany), 1997
- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 1997
- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 1997
- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 1997

Photos and videos