Moscow Elegy
Director: Alexander Sokurov
Year Released: 1987
Rating: 2.0
Sokurov pays homage to the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and what Tarkovsky meant to not simply his homeland (where he battled the censors) but cinema in general. With all due respect to Sokurov, he's more of a stylist than an essayist, which is why this is merely a functional portrait of the late artist: the assembly of stock footage (TV clips, other documentaries, footage from his feature films) is clumsy and little of Tarkovsky's creative process is examined. Sokurov is at an immediate disadvantage, however, because the documentary/essay work by Chris Marker (particularly his excellent One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich) on Tarkovsky is already some of the most important critical analysis out there - Marker's touch is more poetic and insightful.
