Faust(2011)

LNero

I watched this a few years ago. It's richly textured and transportingly surreal, much like a hallucination. I only speak a little German, and I'm not that familiar with Göthe's original play, so I could only pick up on the fact that there were at points things that I wasn't getting, such as certain bits of subtle and dry German humor, and it seemed to me that the translation was at times far from literal, so perhaps more was lost in translation than was necessary. That said, the performances, especially Mephistopholes, are luridly captivating, and I enjoy that brand of bizzare and understated tonality in European films of that general mode. Elsewise, it's worth watching for the experience and the gorgeous scenery and artistic and antiquated film style. I use the vague term "film style" because it's more than cinematography or regular color processing. I didn't see it on DVD, unfortunately, so I can't say what the filming techniques were, but I think they may have actually used a very early film camera because the entire film is presented in a physically (aperture) vignetted square aspect ratio-- that's 1910s/1920s square, not PAL TV 4:3.