Faust (2011 film)

Faust is a 2011 Russian film directed by Alexander Sokurov. Set in the 19th century, it is a free interpretation of the Faust legend and its respective literary adaptations by both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1808) as well as Thomas Mann. The dialogue is in German. The film won the Golden Lion at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. At the 2012 Russian Guild of Film Critics Awards the film was awarded the prizes for Best Film, Best Director (Alexander Sokurov), Best Script (Yuri Arabov) and Best Male Supporting Actor (Anton Adasinsky). It received generally positive reviews from critics. Plot Heinrich Faust (Johannes Zeiler) is driven by his longing for enlightenment. He seeks to understand the very nature of life and how it makes the world go round. Driven by his burning desire for cognition, he even unearths corpses and rummages in their guts just to localize the home of the soul. While he keeps on telling himself "in the beginning was the word", he gets to know the racketeer Mauricius (Anton Adassinsky), playing a worldly version of Mephistopheles, who eventually contradicts him: "In the beginning was the deed". In spite of being amorphic, Mauricius considers himself an Übermensch. Faust's obscure new friend takes him to the twilight zones of their small town. In a bath, his attention is caught by the young Margarete (Isolda Dychauk), also known as "Gretchen". Later the two new friends are entangled in a pub brawl, Faust accidentally kills Gretchen's brother. Faust becomes obsessed with Gretchen, who appears to embody the beauty of blooming life. He indulges himself in thinking that studying her would be reasonable as a part of his research about what makes all the difference between life and death. When the aging Faust has become irreversibly infatuated with Gretchen, Mephistopheles offers him to let him have her.