Aleksandr Sokurov - Spasi i Sokhrani aka Save and Protect (1989)

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A retelling of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary as a surreal story of universal suffering, the film emphasizes the heroine's internal transformation as she slowly loses her grip on reality. Her erotic fascination with rich clothing and her almost childish desire to seduce and to be lost in passion is brilliantly contrasted with the small-town life that leaves Emma tragically isolated in her passionate attempt to bridge the gap between spirituality and sensuality.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Dukhovnye golosa. Iz dnevnikov voyny. Povestvovanie v pyati chastyakh aka Spiritual Voices (1995)

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The film develops as the author’s diary, where unbiased narration is dissolved in the lyrical intonation. You watch the real persons in the particular circumstances on the screen. They are Russian frontier–guards on the Tadjik–Afghani border. But it is also a piece of art, where aesthetic laws give the theme and arrange the facts taken from life.

That is why the film begins with the story about Mozart, about death concealing under the poor cover of the daily routine, about music, breaking through this cover and absorbing spiritual voices of the Universe. And that's why the northern landscape is being shown during a long while, motionless and at the same time subtly changing.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Krug vtoroy AKA The Second Circle (1990)

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A solitary figure trudges through the inclement weather of a vast, remote Siberian wilderness. An unyielding gust of wind brings the young man (Pyotr Aleksandrov) to his knees as he attempts to avert the caustic, sustained force of the snowstorm, momentarily obscuring him from view, erased from the harsh and desolate landscape. The stark, monochromatic image of the film then cuts to an ironically appropriate impersonal and nondescript official title sequence, as the premature sound of a knock on a door seemingly intrudes on the necessity to present information on the film's certification. It is a subtle reminder of life's evolving process: the intrusive nature and unexpected inevitability of death. The film reopens to a jarring, oddly lit image of the gaunt young man standing by the foot of his father's bed in a cramped and squalid apartment. The dispatched medical technicians dispassionately confirm his father's death from natural causes, but explain that they cannot issue a death certificate, pragmatically remarking "You should have placed him in a hospital. Everything would have been easier then." Left alone in theapartment, the son compassionately observes his father's inanimate countenance before preparing his father's body for burial: selecting his best suit, bathing him in the snow in the absence of running water in the apartment, transporting his father's body to the outpatient clinic for a death certificate examination. Without knowing the actual cause of death, the doctor suggests a beaurocratically expedient determination of cancer, rationalizing that "now everything is considered cancer." Having been issued a death certificate, the son then meets with the undertaker (Nadezhda Rodnova), an abrasive and insensitive businesswoman who is quick to assess the family's limited means and treats the overwhelmed young man with disrespect and open hostility, especially as the financially strapped son begins to question some ancillary costs included in the itemized funeral bill. As the dutiful son continues to encounter emotional isolation, antipathy, and an impersonal commodification of the burial process, can he restore the sanctity of the ritual and retain the dignity of his beloved father's memory?

Aleksandr Sokurov - Avtomobil nabiraet nadezhnost AKA The Automobile Gains in Reliability (1974)

This film was created by Sokurov before or during his VGIK student years for the regional TV of Gorki. He does not consider it a part of his filmography. For its creators, it was just a TV program, and the people who worked on it most often were being given no distinction in the credits. This document of the very origins of Sokurov gives us a notion of his "pre-stylistic" period, where the personality of the future great filmmaker reveals itself in spite of means and circumstances. [from the catalog of Torino Film Festival]

Aleksandr Sokurov – Vostochnaya elegiya AKA Oriental Elegy (1996)

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Oriental Elegy (1996). Visually impressionistic, atmospherically dense, and narratively opaque, Oriental Elegy is the surreal journey of a displaced spirit (Aleksandr Sokurov) as he wanders in the interminable darkness through the temporal landscape of a quaint and isolated feudal-era fishing village. Guided by a series of faintly illuminated rooms, the wandering spirit comes upon ancient souls who take on physical forms as they recount their personal stories of daily existence, loss, and tragedy in the peasant community. Intrigued by his initial visit to a curiously distracted elderly woman, the spirit returns to her home in order to ask a fundamental question - "What is happiness?" - an existential query that is innocently answered with innate humility and accepted unknowingness. Through abstractly textured imagery and indelibly hypnotic dreamscapes, Sokurov composes a metaphoric, sensual, and evocative tone poem on a soul's search for enlightenment and the essential survival of human consciousness.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Faust (2011)

The film depicts the instincts and schemes of Faust, and the world that gives rise to his ideas.The film is the final part in a series of films where Alexander Sokurov explores the corrupting effects of power. The previous installments are three biographical dramas: about Adolf Hitler in Moloch from 1999, Vladimir Lenin in Taurus from 2001, and the Japanese emperor Hirohito in The Sun from 2005.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Telets Aka Taurus (2001)

Following up on his shaded character study of Adolf Hitler in Moloch, acclaimed filmmaker Alexander Sokurov directs this companion piece -- the second in a planned trilogy -- based on the waning days of the life of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Set in 1923 in the newly created U.S.S.R., state founder Lenin (Leonid Mozgovoy) -- though he is never mentioned by name -- is convalescing from a stroke at age 51 in his dacha. Surrounded by watchful guards, a live-in doctor, his wife, and his sister, this formerly titanic figure lives as a virtual prisoner after the deterioration of his health. Unable to make contact with the outside world -- newspapers are forcibly removed and the phone lines cut -- Lenin spends much of his time puttering around in the garden or eating with his loyal wife. One day, Stalin (Sergei Razhuk) pays him a visit, even though Lenin isn't quite sure who the future tyrant is. He presents the sick man a walking stick, mentioning that he wanted it to be engraved but Trotsky vetoed the idea. After the visit, Lenin becomes upset that he is living in luxury while his countrymen are starving. This film was screened in competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Aleksandr Sokurov – Skorbnoye beschuvstviye aka Anaesthesia Psychica Dolorosa aka Mournful Unconcern (1987)

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Mournful Unconcern (Russian: Скорбное бесчувствие, translit. Skorbnoye beschuvstviye) is the third produced film by Alexander Sokurov, completed in 1983, but the fourth released one, as it was banned by Soviet authorities until perestroika in 1987. The film, set during World War I, is inspired by Bernard Shaw's play Heartbreak House. Professional actors (Zamansky, Osipenko, Sokolova and others) were used alongside amateur actors, like in most early Sokurov films, and many of the trademarks of his cinematographic style were already apparent.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Peterburgskiy dnevnik: Mozart. Rekviem (2004)

- Sokurov directed and filmed Mozart's Requiem for the Rossica Choir in the wonderful hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Preceded by his student film, inspired by La Traviata.

The first night of a performance of Mozart's Requiem staged by Alexander Sokurov, with the Rossica choir from St. Petersburg, led by Valentina Kopylova-Pantchenko, took place in the small hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic at the end of the winter of 2003. The choir holds a special place in this presentation of the Requiem - it is the main actor and plays the main role. The director was looking to give a new resonance to classical music in both an aesthetic as well as a musical context. On stage, the action takes place in a clear, simple, dynamic and beautiful way, within the space of a magnificent hall. The performance was a surprising revelation even for music-lovers.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Solntse AKA The Sun (2005)

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As Japan nears defeat at the end of World War II, Emperor Hirohito starts his day in a bunker underneath the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. A servant reads to him a list of activities for the day, including a meeting with his ministers, marine biology research, and writing his son. Hirohito muses about the impact on such schedules when the Americans arrive but is told that as long as there is a solitary Japanese person living, the Americans will not reach The Emperor. Hirohito replies that he at times feels like he himself will be the last Japanese person left alive. The servant reminds him that he is a deity, not a person, but Hirohito points out that he has a body just like any other man. He later reflects on the causes of the war when dictating observations about a hermit crab, and then about the peace to come when composing a letter to his son. Soon enough General Douglas MacArthur's personal car is sent to bring him through the ruins of Tokyo for a meeting with the supreme commander

Aleksandr Sokurov - Dni Zatmenija AKA The Days Of Eclipse (1988)

Loosely based on a science fiction story by the Strugatsky brothers. The film tells the story about a young scientist who travels to a poor provincial town in Central Asia to do research on the Russian Orthodox church. Mysterious forces, unbearable heat, strange people, a conversation with a dead friend and aliens disturb his research.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Mariya aka Maria (1988)

Aleksandr Sokurov creates a visually poetic, elegant, and unforgettable synthesis of art and life in Mariya. The lush and textural initial sequence, shot using color film, presents the austere life of the titular Mariya - a robust, genial, and hard-working middle-aged collective farmer with an engaging smile - during an arduous flax harvest season in the summer of 1975: operating heavy machinery, sharing a meal at a communal table with fellow workers, visiting her young son's grave, enjoying a lazy afternoon by the lake with her family on her day off, and proudly (and uninhibitedly) describing her responsibilities and work ethic before the camera.

Semyon Aranovich & Aleksandr Sokurov- Altovaya sonata. Dmitriy Shostakovich aka Sonata for viola (1981)

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A deeply moving and reverent biopic of Soviet composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich. It's co-directed by Aleksandr Sokurov ("The Russian Ark") and veteran filmmaker Semyon Aranovich. Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg in 1906 and died in Moscow in 1975. The understated black-and-white biopic follows Shostakovich as a frail young man as seen through photographs and traces his life through personal documents, recorded appearances, and concert performances of his work set against archival footage of daily life in the Soviet Union. It shows him during his glory days of early critical acclaim until his disfavor under Stalin because of his political views and struggle for creative freedom. He was honored in 1958, five years after Stalin's death, by his country, as he was awarded the second Order of Lenin after graciously not accepting it a year earlier in order for the first Order of Lenin to be posthumously awarded to Sergei Prokofiev. He was recognized for his genius in composing the 7th Symphony during the Second World War, which was an uplifting reminder of the war. It opens with the scene set in a besieged Leningrad. Shostakovich's dream was to bring his music to the masses and give his people an appreciation for their rich culture. The title comes about because Shostakovich's "Sonata for Violin" was the only work he composed that he never heard performed. The film, made in 1981, was discovered after it was buried to hide it from the KGB, who at an earlier date banned it.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Chitayem Blokadnuyu Knigu AKA Reading Book Of Blockade (2009)

The lengthy siege of Leningrad during World War II cost a million civilian lives. In Alexander Sokurov's documentary, various people - actors, journalists, students, soldiers - read eyewitness accounts about this 'historic and cultural disaster', to use Sokurovr's words.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Zhertva vechernyaya AKA The Evening Sacrifice (1987)

Sokurov shows the official manifestation and fireworks on the 1st of May, one of the ritual celebrations of Soviet times, as a gathering of tired participants of a mass scene falling into pieces without the director’s orders and without any aims. Outbursts of joy without reason, mixed here and there with equally unmotivated signs of anxiety are given in brief sketches of a restless and pitiful crowd. A part instead of the whole, individual instead of common, a symbol growing up from details are the postulates of Eisenstein’s representation of the “people’s masses,” both the chorus and the protagonist of the Soviet official culture. Sokurov revises these postulates in the context of our time when the chorus has gone out of action, both in the aesthetic and in the social sense, and the protagonist is absent. However, both chorus and soloist are introduced into the picture of the festivity by the hand of the author: Sokurov puts a church canticle into the soundtrack of the film. It is an evening Orthodox prayer of repentance: “let my prayer be like incense before Thou, like my hands uplifted, an evening sacrifice.”

Aleksandr Sokurov - Odinokiy golos cheloveka aka The Lonely Voice Of Man (1987)

Made in 1977, and only finally released in 1987, this is Sokurov's first feature-length film. Extraordinarily beautiful, utilising an array of unusual stylistic devices, it seems as if Sokurov's style was fully formed from the outset. A sublime meditation on love, loneliness, life and death, it still stands as one of his finest achievements.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Tikhiye stranitsy aka Whispering Pages (1993)

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'Whispering Pages' may be the most dimly lit film ever made. Set to the strains of Mahler, this 1993 film takes place in a city whose streets are rarely penetrated by sunlight. Look hard enough and you'll discover the world of Dostoevsky, whose Crime and Punishment is the source of whatever scant plot exists in Whispering Pages.

Sokurov is one of the most painterly filmmakers alive, but he's seldom interested in conventionally pretty imagery (or conveying the same grandeur sought by his former mentor, Andrei Tarkovsky). Instead, Sokurov's images often seem flat and hollow, with the movie screen's two-dimensionality emphasized rather than disguised. Some of the images in the shadowy Whispering Pages -- like the wizened bureaucrat who covers his face with his newspaper or the prostitutes who wrestle in the street -- might as well have been made from woodcuts.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Krug vtoroy AKA The Second Circle (1990)

Review from Strictly Film School

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A solitary figure trudges through the inclement weather of a vast, remote Siberian wilderness. An unyielding gust of wind brings the young man (Pyotr Aleksandrov) to his knees as he attempts to avert the caustic, sustained force of the snowstorm, momentarily obscuring him from view, erased from the harsh and desolate landscape. The stark, monochromatic image of the film then cuts to an ironically appropriate impersonal and nondescript official title sequence, as the premature sound of a knock on a door seemingly intrudes on the necessity to present information on the film's certification. It is a subtle reminder of life's evolving process: the intrusive nature and unexpected inevitability of death. The film reopens to a jarring, oddly lit image of the gaunt young man standing by the foot of his father's bed in a cramped and squalid apartment. The dispatched medical technicians dispassionately confirm his father's death from natural causes, but explain that they cannot issue a death certificate, pragmatically remarking "You should have placed him in a hospital. Everything would have been easier then." Left alone in the apartment, the son compassionately observes his father's inanimate countenance before preparing his father's body for burial: selecting his best suit, bathing him in the snow in the absence of running water in the apartment, transporting his father's body to the outpatient clinic for a death certificate examination.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Samye Zemnye Zaboty aka Le Piú Terrene Occupazione (1974)

A documentary film about the agricultural development in the region of Gorky: the everyday life in a sovkhoz, the building of a reservoir and of a greenhouse.

Aleksandr Sokurov - Pozyvnye R1NN AKA Prefisso R1NN AKA Calls R1NN (1975)

Plot (source IMDB): In the 20's an enthusiast radio amateur, Fyodor Lbov, experiments one of the first short-waves radio in the city of Gorky.