帝国[电影解说]

如果你正在犹豫要不要看，我可以告诉你：索科洛夫的《帝国》不是一部能让你轻松消化的电影——全片几乎没有传统意义上的“剧情”，更像是一幅缓缓展开的油画。旁白压得很低，仿佛在自言自语，偶尔浮现的Alla Osipenko并不“演”什么，而是像一尊被历史打磨过的雕塑，站在灰蒙蒙的光线下，连呼吸都带着肃穆。索科洛夫用长镜头和暗调画面，把苏联帝国的衰败拍成一场缓慢的葬礼——废弃的宫殿、沉默的人群、破碎的雕像，每一帧都像被时间浸泡过的旧照片。影片叙事完全跳脱常规，更像是对历史创伤的一次冥想，节奏沉缓，情绪密度极高。适合那些能静下心、愿意用视觉和听觉去感受而不是理解故事的人——比如喜欢塔可夫斯基、安哲罗普洛斯这类导演的观众，会在这部片子里找到同类气息。没有一句台词交代她的身份或来意，只有环境音与细微动作在空旷中回响。

　　Short film Empire is based on a radio drama Sorry, Wrong Number by the American writer Lucille Fletcher. Actually, Sokurov draws on a single theme forming the background for the story of the thriller — the woman's illness… The heroine is bed–ridden and her only means of communication with the outside world is her telephone — until a killer interrupts the conversation…
　　Sokurov removes all the dialogues, leaving us alone with the heroine — “a living skeleton” among the refined, with a touch of Modern–style, furnishings — who is listening to a radio broadcasting of Traviata, with its pleas for mercy and love. An elegant coffin–home is the spatial centre and symbolization of the entire film. And inside the coffin we certainly see the actress — the famous Russian ballerina Alla Osipenko who plays not only the heroine but also her own self.
　　This metaphoric cinema–image bears an allusion to the great “handicapped” Sarah Bernhardt who was reported to sleep in a coffin, as well as to the entire complex of aesthetised Decadence, converting an apology of Death into a lifestyle. Here is the key to the code of the title. Empire is a style that attempted to reanimate the dead ancient harmony. The heroine of Sokurov's film communicates with her phone as the only partner, and sort of interferes with the beyond, attracting this air — intangible yet saturated with danger. It is from the radio air that she accumulates both pleasure and tranquillity — the aria of dying yet beloved Violetta, while the killer's silhouette materializes from the phone air. A chamber pot, overturned and spilt by the killer in haste, remains the only evidence of human activities in this boudoir of Death. Sokurov's metaphor, clad in naturalistic details, produces the effect of ironic disclosure: “a wet spot” is left after a symbol.
　　The film was shot as a study work of a VGIK student S.Sidorov. At that time Sokurov did not have a chance to launch a project of his own, therefore he used this possibility to work. Visual conception of this film anticipates a considerable number of Sokurov's future experiments: light that models the space, levelling of colours, correlation of contrasting textures.

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