The 2011-film Faust was one of the big awards players outside of Hollywood. It is not the first Sokurov movie in German, her made one in 1999 already in a movie series where "Faust" is already the fourth entry. He is one of the most famous Russian directors right now and has been especially present at the Palme d'Or film festival in the past. And he is also a writer for the movies he makes, such as this one. Personally, I feel this film looks much older than not even 5 years ago.
The main character is played by Johannes Zeiler and he looks a bit like Ralph Fiennes. Mephisto (or the Moneylender) has not acted in movies after this one here, but I read he has his own theater, so he's probably pretty active nonetheless. Apart from them, there are several (known) German actors in here, such as Hanna Schygulla or also Antje Lewald who I saw first in the Campers TV show. The film runs for considerably over two hours and is of course about the Goethe work, but still several steps are in-between. It is based on Yuriy Arabov's adaptation and was altered again by Sokurov into the final version. I am not too sure how close it is still to Goethe's work as it's been too long since we had it at school, but the three central characters are obviously all there.
All in all, I was not too impressed and sometimes I even felt it dragged, so I would not really recommend watching it unless you love story and are really curious about this adaptation.
The main character is played by Johannes Zeiler and he looks a bit like Ralph Fiennes. Mephisto (or the Moneylender) has not acted in movies after this one here, but I read he has his own theater, so he's probably pretty active nonetheless. Apart from them, there are several (known) German actors in here, such as Hanna Schygulla or also Antje Lewald who I saw first in the Campers TV show. The film runs for considerably over two hours and is of course about the Goethe work, but still several steps are in-between. It is based on Yuriy Arabov's adaptation and was altered again by Sokurov into the final version. I am not too sure how close it is still to Goethe's work as it's been too long since we had it at school, but the three central characters are obviously all there.
All in all, I was not too impressed and sometimes I even felt it dragged, so I would not really recommend watching it unless you love story and are really curious about this adaptation.