According to its producer Andrey Sigle, "The film is a big Russian cultural project and for Putin is very important. He saw it as a film that can introduce the Russian mentality into European culture." Given the current bumbling, pointless invasion of Ukraine, apparently intended to somehow make fading Russia look powerful to the world like the Soviet Union once did, this bumbling, pointless film indeed reveals ONE Russian's flawed mentality--Putin's. Except for getting this handle on Vlad's inner workings, pass this mess up. It's boring, tedious, gross without thrills or shocks, and full of people you don't want to look at.

This adaptation is much like watching a play or musical without interludes. It's shot as continuous rolling action, with only two scenes where the action pauses for more than 5 seconds. It is exactly what I would expect from an 18th century fairy tale, and I think it's executed beautifully, if not restlessly. You need to really strap in to take it all in, but once you do, you'll find the story as engrossing as it is weird.

The whole movie is like a dream, in a weird way ..

Exceptionally brutal, grotesque at the point of boasting. Impossible to understand the philosophic story behind it.

Yes, it is interesting as a piece of film making -- but it took too long for me to get to the point -- even if that shows some glorious landscapes in Iceland... And it has little to do with Goethe's Faust.

Hard to follow with the apparent German dubbing and then English subtitles, and doesn't seem to follow the original story very closely. Needs to be taken on its own merit, which is difficult considering it doesn't live up to expectations of the title.

Aleksandr Sokurov is actually the final installment of films he has made in pursuit of exploring the corruption that power often creates. The first three movies were focused on real events. Sokurov had already created films that discussed Hitler, Lenin and Japan Emperor Hirohito. With FAUST he has created a very "loose" adaptation and merging of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Thomas Manns' work regarding the legend of Faust. The ideas expressed in those two works remain but more or less lodged in the background. Sokurov's Faust is obsessed with understanding not only the origins of the earth, but locating the spirit of humanity that he seems to feel is required to gain a full comprehension. This Faust explores the innards of decomposing bodies in search of some idea of soul as a biological thing. His obsession has taken a turn toward insanity as he recklessly searches for proof of the human soul. Now an aging man, he realizes he may have missed the opportunity to actually live. On the brink of losing all, he turns to his town's Moneylender. Played by Anton Adasinsky, the Moneylender quickly reveals that he is something simultaneously superior and less than human. Repulsive odors issue forth from his body which is revealed to look more like a grotesque perversion of human flesh. This is really a manifestation of the mythic Mephistopheles. Faust's obsession regarding the earth's origins and the human soul is replaced by the lust he feels for an innocent young maiden. So desperate for the erotic pleasures her body seems to offer him, he thinks nothing of signing away his soul to this distorted perversion of human flesh. Faust gets his way, but it is fraudulent and unsatisfying. Perplexed that he has actually discovered the existence of The Devil in the form of this Moneylender (Mephistopheles) -- he decides to set up an elaborate trap for The Devil. He may temporarily hinder this satanic form, but he does so at an unmeasurable cost of his own being. The actors are superb and Sokurov has made a powerful film that is so oddly repulsive it is impossible to forget. Much of the success here is owed to the creative way Sokurov employed his Cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel. The entire style of the film is delivered in a constant warping of images. Slanted, sideways, upside down, right side up but edging toward a sepia-toned distortion that is a challenge to always understand what we are seeing. It is one of the most clever use of camera and editing I've ever seen. It is clearly inspired by Flemish and Dutch painting, but applied in the most perverse ways. Perspectives are constantly shifting into further skewed outlines. Once the viewer falls into this surrealistically experimental approach, it is impossible to look away. After the film ends, it takes a few minutes to retrain your eyes on reality. It is a disturbing example of experimental Film Art. Viewers should anticipate that it will take more than several minutes before eyes can adjust to Faust's insane world view, but once they do -- it is an incredible experience.

Ho hum, a professor, a middle-aged bourgeois, has a mid-life crisis. But it looks amazing.

Une balade surréaliste guidée par l'entretien métaphysique entre l'homme de science et le démon.

Hard to follow with the apparent German dubbing and then English subtitles, and doesn't seem to follow the original story very closely. Needs to be taken on its own merit, which is difficult considering it doesn't live up to expectations of the title.

A poor adaptation of Goethe.

Between a 6/10 and 7/10, Aleksandr Sokurov's demented, gunky take on the Faust legend tumbles from one scene into the next with loping, loopy energy.

Odd, eccentric and surreal on every level -- Sokurov has crafted a truly unique spin on Faust. The stylistic devices, while inspired by F. W. Murnau, belong to Sokurov. An unforgettable film experience. Am puzzled by the low ratings.

A medieval doctor who's bored with life sells his soul to a Moneylender in exchange for one night with a beautiful young woman. A fairly surreal and occasionally confusing version of Goethe's classic, Aleksandr Sokurov's adaptation is rewarding, but not intended for literary novices.

I don't know. Individual images stand out and are haunting, but as a movie, you have to in the mood for surreal German folk tales, told by a Russian filmmaker.

What an impeccable work of art! The first thing that stands out from Aleksandar Sokurov's (<i>Russian Ark</i> [2002]) brave adaptation of Goethe's immortal piece of German tragedy is its remarkable cinematographic fluency, which may remind the connoisseur viewer of Pasolini's poetic and free-flowing visual literature with glimpses of incontrollable moral disorders, including the omniscient narrative that pervades the storytelling structure, with thoughts and voiceovers interrupting the characters' psyche (Fellini popularized this film trend from <i>8 1/2</i> [1963] to <i>Satyricon</i> [1969], until the world saw Pasolini's Trilogy of Life for the first time). Sokurov's only weakness is his sudden obsession with distorting the dimensions of objects through his digital lens. The purpose is understood, that is, to accentuate the phantasmagoric scope of his surreal vignettes scattered throughout his works, but it distracts the viewer from what should have been a more visually delicate tragedy. Still, I had never imagined I would see Expressionism addressed with the Italian dreamlike trademarks of artistic freedom, improvisatory language and haunting voiceovers in the 20th Century. 2011 has been, once again, a witness of a superbly crafted and directed (and therefore terribly underappreciated and underrated) cinematic work of the highest class. If you really want to have an idea of how high I am placing this project, I'd rank it over the mysticism of the great <i>Fanny och Alexander</i> (1982) anyday! 96/100

Too theatrical in style. The lousy translations & subtitles further worsen this already so very unapproachable piece.

Audacious, outrageous and pretty brilliant, Sokurov's FAUST is like a Bruegel painting come to life but then the director continually skews reality through rapid lens and color changes. The film is at once realistic and totally artificial. Recalling the dictates and style of German regie theater, Sokurov brings the aesthetic to film brilliantly. But unlike Goethe's source material in which knowledge is gold, Sokurov takes us into a world in which life and death don't really matter. Knowledge and stupidly are equally unimportant and nothing has any meaning. FAUST is a challenging and rewarding film that dazzles in its pessimism.

Big, weird, bold, wonderful, literary, challenging and alive are all adjectives that can be attributed to Alexander Sokurov's "Faust", arguably the most important adaptation of Goethe's story concerning a man who sells his soul to the devil since F.W. Murnau's benchmark 1926 silent film of the same name. But if that description is too vague and fragmented to wholly imagine, think Tom Hooper should he decide to go completely against the grain of Hollywood prestige pictures, amplify it by a thousand, and bathe it in acid. Sokurov's "Faust" isn't easy on the eyes -- shot in 4:3 ratio by a wandering, slightly inebriated lens, it puts hair on the chest of the classic German tragedy, and follows more so the rhythm of its own visual narrative than it does recite a by-the-books reading. All the better. "Faust" absolutely won't work for everybody; it in effect puts the viewer in the awkward position of acting midwife to a creation being birthed from hell. It sprawls, bites, burns and consumes entirely the respective landmark works from Goethe and Murnau by riddling the tale's "characters" (and I use that label loosely) in the bleak, fathomless bottom of an atmosphere of unquestionable, unwavering evil, and does it all with a slimy, toothy grin. You'll either laugh at its pain, or be hopelessly anguished by the ripping snort it seems to be having on behalf of itself. (79/100)

As excruciating as it is to sit through, I can't stop thinking about it days later. A daring feat of inspired movie making.