Francofonia

With its single-tracking-shot stroll, Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (VL-9/03) brought a completely unique perspective to St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum. Now, in Francofonia he turns his attention to the Louvre in Paris. Sokurov portrays the museum's great collection as not only being representative of the centrality of France to European culture but also serving as a symbol of the fragility of Western cultural heritage—an artistic inheritance that has been created by war and conquest but is also threatened by those same forces. As Sokurov's camera prowls the halls, Napoleon periodically appears to claim credit for establishing the Louvre and filling its vast galleries with artifacts from all over the world (the female embodiment of the French Revolution also shows up repeatedly to shout “Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood!”). Much of the film is devoted to fictionalized scenes depicting Jacques Jaujard, formerly the chief curator, collaborating with art-loving Nazi officer Count Metternich to save the Louvre's holdings from destruction or confiscation. Other sequences show Sokurov skyping with the captain of a ship carrying containers filled with precious artworks while the vessel is trapped in a storm, and also musing in voiceover about how many objects might have been lost in transport to Paris in centuries past. A brief glimpse of ancient friezes from Syria inevitably points up recent destruction during that country's civil war. While this scattershot approach makes Francofonia a less all-enveloping experience than Russian Ark, it nevertheless casts a hypnotic spell that is characteristic of the director's unconventional style. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)