Tales of the Locarno forest – Newspaper Kommersant No. 139 (7340) of 08/03/2022

On August 3, the 75th International Film Festival opens in Locarno. Among the 17 competitive films – “Fairy Tale” by Alexander Sokurov. comments Andrey Plakhov.

The Locarno festival is one of the three oldest in the world and only a couple of months younger than Cannes: both were first held in 1946. Anniversary number 75 on the festival poster appeals to heightened expectations. As well as the fact that for the first time since the pandemic, the festival will be held without mandatory tests, QR codes and other covid restrictions.

Traditionally, the center of the festival life in Locarno is the open-air evening gala shows in the picturesque Piazza Grande, where up to 8 thousand spectators gather. This is the largest outdoor cinema in Europe, equipped with state-of-the-art projection equipment that provides an ideal image and surround sound. The program of gala screenings includes films from different countries and genres. For example, David Lynch’s American action movie Faster than a Bullet with Brad Pitt as an unfortunate killer. The synopsis promises “a gripping comedic tale in which we are reminded that although we cannot control our destiny, we must not let fear control us.”

In addition to the new ones, archival films will also be shown at Piazza Grande. One of them is the classic Costa-Gavras detective story Killers in Sleeping Cars with a whole constellation of French actors: Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Michel Piccoli, and Jacques Perrin. The other is Imitation of Life by Douglas Sirk, starring Lana Turner. This screening is timed to coincide with Sirk’s full retrospective, which will take place as part of the festival.

The competition program looks intriguing: almost every director participating in it has past achievements or advances for the future. Frenchwoman Patricia Mazuy will present her new opus Bowling Saturn, preceded by a warning that it could shock sensitive viewers with violent scenes. An underground bowling alley becomes the scene of action, and a corrupt police officer becomes the hero. The law enforcement officer is also at the center of another film – “The Adventures of Gigi Law” by Alessandro Comodina. A series of suicides of girls throwing themselves under a train becomes the plot outline for depicting the absurd world of the Italian province on the borderline of reality and fantasy.

The film “Rule 34” by Brazilian Julia Murat brings together the main topics of the modern “agenda”: gender, sexual abuse and decolonization. Malaysian director Woo Ming Jin will show “Stone Turtle” – a mix of social drama and folklore parable. And the Azerbaijani Hilal Baydarov – “Sermon to the Fish”: in this film, a soldier returns from the war and finds that all the inhabitants of his native village have rotted alive due to a mysterious disease.

The most eminent director of the competition is Alexander Sokurov. And he is the most intriguing. Instead of a routine synopsis, the screenings of his new film “Fairy Tale” are preceded by the following text: “… Once upon a time there were two vagabonds … no … three … no, four … But there were others, many different … I knew them. For a long time. But I felt close to them. Then something happened and they disappeared. At night I heard voices, fragments of complex questions, groans, howls of millions of voices… An inexplicable excitement seized me… “Satan, the passion-bearer, strangled thou with the charitable strings of your suffering” – M22 K, 4-4. According to rumors, it is known that the heroes of the “Tales” are Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Churchill, the action takes place in the afterlife, and the game plot is somehow ingeniously embedded in the fabric of a documentary chronicle of the Second World War.

Alexander Sokurov has long been associated with the Locarno festival. Even 35 years ago, at the dawn of perestroika, he received the Bronze Leopard prize here for his debut film The Lonely Voice of a Man, which had just been removed from the censors’ shelf. In 2006, Sokurov was awarded the Golden Leopard for his contribution to cinema. And now he returns to Locarno again with a new work – as always, experimental and innovative.