In Skazka, Alexander Sokurov weaves digital magic to create a phantasmagorical vision of the Afterlife, worthy of Dante. But wait: are we in the limbo of Purgatory, or a paradoxical Paradise reserved for notorious men of world history? Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Churchill and more: all are present and accounted for. Since they exist only as archival media images, each figure comes in a serial set.
In the blackest of political comedies, these fallen men beg, in turn, to be let through Heaven’s Gate – but the angels who peek through never open wide. Little wonder, as the former leaders wander listlessly, bitching (in a Babel of multiple languages) about each other’s clothes, hair and hygiene.
In what is effectively a work of animation, Sokurov has pulled together many talents into an extraordinary technological feat. It blends pictorial elements from art history to form an endlessly unfolding landscape, replete with fog and ghostly armies of the sacrificed victims of history. Announced as Sokurov’s last film, Skazka is an inspired riff on the high culture of Peter Greenaway mixed with the low culture of mash-up artists Soda_Jerk. Can we now expect some entrepreneur to bring us the interactive Skazka video game?