This essay was part of a series of programmes on the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. It gives a good picture of the work of Hubert Robert, a French painter (1733-1808), who was a representative of what Alexandr Sokurov calls ‘classic virtuosity’. The film starts with scenes from a Japanese play in which masked priestly figures occupy centre stage, ‘eternal actors,’ filmed in slow motion. The audience is seated under trees in blossom. In the cool air, white petals fall like snowflakes in the night. This is the beginning of an initiation ritual that the film-maker recounts in a voice, the tone of which evokes distant reminiscences. With a text by Dostoevsky read in the background, the initiatory objects of the imaginary that transfer between the theatrical performance and Robert’s pictorial world are the branches of magnificent trees ‘whispering words of love’. From a fade-in/fade-out we enter landscapes, grandiose architectures, ruins, the details of which Sokurov presents to strengthen his artistic inclination for the 18th century, of which he knows Robert’s depiction to be perfectly fictitious. With intensity, the film recounts the meeting between Sokurov and Robert. It incorporates the painter’s work within the film-maker’s. With its often subtle soundtrack including music by Albinoni, Glinka, Mozart and Tchaikovsky, and the sounds of storms, rain and birds contributing depth to this waking dream, the film evokes the mysterious links between biography and autobiography since Sokurov knows that, by putting the painter’s work on film, he is forced to talk about himself. (AP)
