Taurus (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2001) (Patreon)

As a secret contrarian, nothing would delight me more than to say that Taurus slaps. Alas, slap it does not, although I also think that the harsh rejection it received in Cannes may have been just a little off-base. Flawed as it is, Taurus is at least a mostly coherent statement, which is more than be said for Faust, Sokurov's inexplicable 2011 Golden Lion winner. Divided into two parts -- was this originally made for Russian TV? -- Taurus is the second film in Sokurov's dictator trilogy, and it definitely serves as a midpoint between the stagy, miasmic Moloch and The Sun, which remains one of the director's finest films.

This is a film about the final days and disoriented dotage of V.I. Lenin (Leonid Mozgovoy), and although he seems to want to be left alone, Part One shows him surrounded by swarms of pesky attendees and hangers-on. He still recognized and trusts his wife (Mariya Kuznetova), although he rather brazenly asks her if she would like to die along with him. A true narcissist, Lenin is ontologically incapable of envisioning a world without him.

This very problem is the crux of Part Two, when a Very Special Visitor comes to cursorily pay his respects to the dying leader. Of course it's Stalin (Sergei Razhuk), and if Sokurov is to be commended for anything here it's Razhuk's performance and the uncharacteristic depiction of Papa Joe as careful and self-possessed. He is fully aware that the sun has not gone down on Lenin entirely, and he must mind his manners and bide his time. He does rather blatantly admire the view from Lenin's palace balcony, signalling that he knows it will soon be his.

There is a tonal inconsistency throughout Taurus, although I would argue it's not without its purpose. Long, slow passages of Lenin hobbling through his home, or his naked, failing body being examined by his Finnish physician (Lev Yeliseyev), alternate with sequences of moderately paced découpage, showing that Sokurov is not interested in fully committing to his trademark "slow cinema." Similarly, anguished rumination is frequently interrupted by a darkly comic outburst, Lenin flailing about like a maniacal Charlie Chaplin. 

But of course, I have been avoiding the obvious. The most distinctive formal feature of Taurus is Sokurov's decision to color the entire film in a dense, murky green. Combined with his usual grainy, chiaroscuro cinematography, this makes the film look like it's submerged in a thick porridge tinted somewhere between emerald and pea-soup. This renders some scenes almost illegible, while it imbues well-lit shots (a midday window, the sun through the clouds) with the Turneresque glow that dominated, and elevated, Mother and Son.

This green filter makes everything look sickly and unnatural, with the notable exception of the forest and grassy fields in the exterior shots. If we think about Marxist materialism, one of the basic tenets is that nature is inert, and it is human industry that transforms it. But Taurus is a deathbed film that suggests that in the end, nature wins. The all-encompassing verdancy of the film could be construed as the uncaring, impassivity of nature reclaiming Lenin, as it will all of us. 

At one point Lenin protests that while he sired no children, and his time is waning, he did accomplish history. This may be incontestable, but Sokurov takes pains to show that history is only as persistent as humanity's memory of it. As Lenin slips further into dementia, his dictatorial omnipotence becomes a parody of itself. He goes on a "hunting trip," shooting at birds with his fingers in the shape of guns. But more depressingly, Lenin is shown struggling to engage in an intellectual duel with Stalin, only to forget who he was moments later.

If there is lasting value in this directorial misfire, it may be in what it tells us about Sokurov as a post-Soviet subject and a diehard humanist. Victims of communism will no doubt find Taurus's depiction of Lenin too sympathetic by half, while pro-Soviet tankies will bristle at its mean-spiritedness. Sokurov plays it right down the middle, suggesting that the corruption that power brings doesn't just compromise the individual. It practically erases them.