Fairytale

Resurrected from the dead via animated archival footage, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin, along with Jesus, find themselves in purgatory. Alexander Sokurov uses his signature cinematic style to create a phantasmagoria, in which four of the most notorious leaders in twentieth-century European history, along with Christ and a cameo by Napoleon, amble about muttering in their mother tongues, often talking past one another about not much except themselves and their personal regrets. Stripping them of their bombast and context, Sokurov seems to imply that these figures were dependent upon their audiences’ adoration to wield the colossal power that resulted in millions of deaths. Banned by the censors from theatrical release in Russia.