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Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, Alexander Sokurov’s riff on Goethe’s tragedy is a bewildering but blazingly styled fever-dream epic, completing the Russian art titan’s quadrilogy on power.

The basic story holds firm, with the ambitious prof (Johannes Zeiler) signing his soul off to Satan, here played as a moneylending gargoyle (Anton Adasinsky).

A sense-scrambling work that conjures images of indelible potency: you won’t forget the dissection, the lyrical love scene, the pitiable homunculus, the chilling trek to hell or Adasinsky naked in a hurry.

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Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at GamesRadar+.