A doctor in early 19th-century Germany becomes infatuated with the sister of a man he unintentionally killed and bargains with the Devil incarnate to conjure their union in exchange for his soul.
Cinematography
Bruno Delbonnel's mud-and-fog aesthetic, digitally smeared like a corpse painting
Direction
Sokurov's one-take possession sequences, pure cinematic possession
Acting
Adasinsky's Moneylender: greasy, magnetic, possibly actually Satan
Director
Aleksandr Sokurov
Johannes Zeiler
Heinrich Faust
Anton Adasinsky
Moneylender
Isolda Dychauk-Ott
Margarete
Georg Friedrich
Wagner
Hanna Schygulla
Moneylender's Wife
Florian Brückner
Valentin
Antje Lewald
Margarete's Mother
Maxim Mehmet
Valentins Freund
Oliver Bootz
Valentins Freund
Andreas Schmidt
Valentins Freund
Antoine Monot Jr.
Mönch
Lars Rudolph
Wirt
Eva-Maria Kurz
Faust's Cook
Andrey Lebedev
doctor's helper
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Final film in Sokurov's 'Power Tetralogy' after Hitler, Lenin, and Hirohito portraits—here examining power through the individual soul rather than the state.
The 'floating camera' effect required specially constructed gyroscopic rigs; Sokurov wanted viewers to feel 'unmoored from gravity, like Faust himself.'
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