Alexandre SOKUROV
Александр СОКУРОВ
Alexandre SOKOUROV
USSR, 1989, 168mn 
Colour, fiction
Save and Protect
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Спаси и сохрани

 

 Sauve et protège

 Spasi i sokhrani

 
Directed by : Alexandre SOKUROV ( Александр СОКУРОВ)
Writing credits : Yuri ARABOV (Юрий АРАБОВ)
 
Cast
Aleksandr CHEREDNIK (Александр ЧЕРЕДНИК)
Vyacheslav ROGOVOY (Вячеслав РОГОВОЙ)
Robert VAAB (Роберт ВААБ) ...Charles Bovary
Cecilia ZERVUDAKI (Сесилия ЗЕРВУДАКИ) ...Emma Bovary
 
Cinematography : Sergey YURIZDITSKY (Сергей ЮРИЗДИЦКИЙ)
Production design : Yelena AMSHINSKAYA (Елена АМШИНСКАЯ)
Sound : Vladimir PERSOV (Владимир ПЕРСОВ)
Editing : Leda SEMENOVA (Ледa СЕМЕНОВА)
Production : Lenfilm, Troitskiy Most
 
format : 35 mm
Release date in France : 1994-08-24, Site

Awards :
Premier prix au Festival de Montréal, 1989
Prix de la FIPRESCI à Montréal, 1989
Grand prix du Festival de Dunkerque, 1993

DVD with subtitles
Editor : Les Films du Paradoxe. 2009.
VOSTF et VF
Bonus : livret
Sortie : 20/10/2009

Plot synopsis
Sokurov finds an existential plot in Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary and it becomes the basis of his film Save and Protect (this title is a phrase from an Orthodox Christian prayer). In Switzerland he meets the heroine of his plan Cecile Zervoudaki, the French woman with an extraordinary face and rare profession — an ethnolinguist. In the film Emma speaks French to all her Russian partners, being an alien here. She does not 'fit' in this life: houses are not higher than her waist, and in her bedroom the dark sky replaces the ceiling. Sokurov's metaphor is absolutely cinematographic and tragic.
The word 'duty' has become the title of one of Sokurov's documentaries. All the characters have their duties to life. Emma has an erotic duty that transforms her into a vagrant devil. The soul returns to its home only when the body is buried. Therefore Sokurov presents the episode of the heroine's burial in three coffins as a grandiose multiplex panorama. In a sense, he pays last tribute to substance, restoring the trajectory and rhythm of the descent of the body for which the coffin is the last earthly home.
Alexandra Tuchinskaya
English translation by Anna Shoulgat, © 2002.Alexandra Tuchinskaya

Source : www.sokurov.spb.ru
 

Commentaries and bibliography
Sauve et protège d'Alexandre Sokourov, Hélène FRAPPAT, lesinrocks.com, 2009
Sauve et protège de Alexandre Sokourov, Philippe PIAZZO, Claude-Marie TREMOIS, telerama.fr, 2009
Sauve et protège, Alexandre Sokourov, Jean-Luc LACUVE, cineclubdecaen.com, 2009
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Récidive, Orléans (France), 2024
- Cycle Alexandre Sokourov au cinéma Grand Action, Paris (France), 2012
- Fall Festival 1998, Paris (France), 1998
- Release in France of the film, Different cities (France), 1994-08-24
- FEMA / La Rochelle International Film Festival, La Rochelle (France), 1993

Photos and videos
 
Photos extraites du site www.filmsduparadoxe.com