Fairytale
Alexander Sokurov, 2022, 78 min

Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill find themselves in Purgatory. Resurrected from the dead through animated archival footage, Sokurov employs his signature cinematic style to craft a phantasmagoric scene where four of the most infamous leaders of twentieth-century European history, alongside Christ and a cameo appearance by Napoleon, wander aimlessly, muttering in their native languages. Often, they talk past one another, focused primarily on themselves and their personal regrets. Stripped of their grandeur and historical context, Sokurov implies that these figures were largely reliant on the adoration of their audiences to wield the immense power that led to millions of deaths. Their trivial concerns in purgatory underscore the banality of evil. This fictional story, though entirely made up, continues some of the reflections Sokurov explored in his tetralogy on power, particularly questioning the role of the individual in history and the responsibility of political leaders to their citizens, making the film a relevant statement for our time. The Russian Ministry of Culture banned festival screenings and distribution of the film, which was soon followed by an informal ban on screening of all his previous works.

Screening as part of The Lonely Voice of Man: Films of Alexander Sokurov