In Skazka, Alexander Sokurov weaves digital magic to create a phantasmagorical vision of the Afterlife, worthy of Dante. But wait: are we in the limbo of Purgatory, or a paradoxical Paradise reserved for notorious men of world history? Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Churchill and more: all are present and accounted for. Since they exist only as archival media images, each figure comes in a serial set. In the blackest of political comedies, these fallen men beg, in turn, to be let through Heaven’s Gate – but the angels who peek through never open wide. Little wonder, as the former leaders wander listlessly, bitching (in a Babel of multiple languages) about each other’s clothes, hair and hygiene. In what is effectively a work of animation, Sokurov has pulled together many talents into an extraordinary technological feat. It blends pictorial elements from art history to form an endlessly unfolding landscape, replete with fog and ghostly armies of the sacrificed victims of history. Announced as Sokurov’s last film, Skazka is an inspired riff on the high culture of Peter Greenaway mixed with the low culture of mash-up artists Soda_Jerk. Can we now expect some entrepreneur to bring us the interactive Skazka video game?
很独特的拍摄方法，我接受不了。
出现在B站鬼畜/恶搞视频区我也不会觉得奇怪。 （索科洛夫怎么突然洛兹尼察化了？）
上帝召唤伟人，但是他不开门
3.5形式格外强烈，内容老生常谈
同样是合成手法，难免联想到《英国贵妇与法国公爵》，不过与侯麦的活动遮片摄影技术不同的是，索科洛夫采用的是历史档案材料+智能生成的拼贴影像，诉求也并不一致，前者是接近绘画层面的写实主义，后者则是还魂历史迷雾（并不新鲜的主题反刍），但笼统而简单地归到画中游式装置作品似乎亦无不可。 阻碍景深发展的二维化平移，意图是切断观众望向历史纵深的凝视，将二战苏、德、英三巨头在地狱和天堂间的徘徊之路放置到插画式扁平景观——仿佛可以暂时抹去尘世恩怨，天堂大门场景具有卡夫卡式《审判》既视感；刻意露出的人脸/声音合成破绽，犹如鬼魅附身，数字时代的科技依然有机械性的扭曲邪恶；被模糊的人群面部叠加，正是《呐喊》再现。