Moloch grips the audience from the surreal opening shot: a naked woman wakes up, walks out to an enormous balcony, performs a succession of acrobatics and wanders to the edge. Suddenly we are aware she is under surveillance, and that she is Eva Braun, Hitler's partner, who is about to play hostess to the Goebbels, Martin Bormann and 'Adi' himself. This was the first of Sokurov's films on powerful men of the 20th century (followed by Taurus, about Lenin, and the marvellous The Sun, about Hirohito). The portrayal of Hitler is startlingly believable; although still a credible, complex human being, he is also an arrogant, insecure hypochondriac with a tenuous grip on reality. In an ambiguous scene, he seems unaware of Auschwitz – is this genuine ignorance or a rare hint of guilt? He continually insults Eva for her stupidity, yet she shows far more insight, gravely intoning: “Without an audience you're nothing more than a corpse.” A unique, hypnotic film with tableaux of startling beauty.
The first film in Sokurov's planned tetralogy on men of power in the twentieth century (the other films so far are Taurus (2000) about Lenin, and The Sun (2004) about Emperor Hirohito). In Moloch, his subject is Hitler, who is shown with Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels and Martin Bormann, in his inaccessible mountain hideaway.
Dealing with the course of historical events, literary plots and biographies of famous or unknown people, Sokurov is primarily interested in turning points, such as the most tragic and inevitable transition period in man's existence — from life to death. In this film Hitler is presented as a product of the decay of the whole epoch of culture and as a symbol of the absurdity of all the universal desires of man.
The Sun
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Moloch
