‘Fairytale’ Review: Infamous Men of History Gather and Gossip in Alexander Sokurov’s Eerie, Deepfaked Plunge Into Purgatory
variety.comGuy Lodge Film CriticMany people, when faced with the old question of who they’d invite to their dream dinner party, dutifully reel off a list of historical titans, which tends to prompt further, usually unasked questions: Would these undoubtedly interesting and consequential individuals make for great company together?
Would they have much to say to each each other? And would it make for a better evening than, say, a gathering of your regular, undistinguished drinking buddies?
Ever-experimental Russian formalist Alexander Sokurov drolly hints at the answer in his eccentric new film “Fairytale,” though not exactly in a dinner party context: Most of us aren’t hungry to spend an evening clinking glasses with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, after all.
Still, this brief, dreamlike musing assembles them — along with other daunting dead men of history, from Churchill to Mussolini to Jesus himself — in a kind of misty purgatory where they’re at liberty to converse.
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