80
Aleksandr Sokurov’s Francofonia is rich, complex, challenging.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
Skipping across ages and genres, this cine-essay beguilement from Russian Ark director Alexander Sokurov considers the Louvre — and the miracle of the transmission of art and culture across its history.
70
The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
When I first saw the movie, at a festival, it wavered on the brink of the precious. That changed on a second viewing. Most of Francofonia now seems tender, stirring, and imperilled.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
The subject of Francofonia is art as the spoils of war, and the example he gives is the period when the Louvre – called at one point “the capital of the world” – came under Nazi control. Making the barest hint about the destruction of historic artworks in Syria at the hands of ISIS, Sokurov gently reminds the viewer why all this is terribly relevant today.
58
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
Less fluid than "Russian Ark," Francofonia is even harder to pigeonhole, which is something of a feat.
70
Does it all come together? Well, yes, if viewers think of the film as a freewheeling poetic essay, highly personal yet captivating.
80
Francofonia is a chatty and occasionally brilliant rumination on art, history and death.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Francofonia is a fascinating essay and meditation on art, history and humanity’s idea of itself.
80
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
The mood’s often as fun as it is funereal, and though the film occasionally feels clever in a way that isn’t necessarily a compliment, Sokurov’s ideas have a philosophical depth and richness that are found almost nowhere else in cinema.
75
For all its congratulatory spirit, the film has the persistent feeling of an elegy bidding adieu to a bygone time.