Save and Protect
6.2
Inspired by Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Sokurov’s Save and Protect recalls the most crucial events of Emma’s decline and fall: affairs with the aristocratic Rodolphe and the student Leon, the humiliation that follows her husband’s botching of the operation on the stable boy’s clubfoot. The universality of the theme of eternal struggle between the soul and the flesh is conveyed through the absence of specific reference to time or place: although the film seems to begin in 1840, its surreal mode effortlessly accommodates an automobile and the strains of “When the Saints Go Marching In” on an off-screen radio. Focusing on passion from a woman’s perspective and downplaying plot, Sokurov explores his subject in exquisite detail, capturing not only the heat of passion but also the quiet moments before and after and the innocent sensuousness of the body.
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Cast
9 people
Cécile Zervudacki
Madame Bovary
Also in
Life Lesson
Werner et Nenad
Александр Чередник
Robert Vaab
Also in
Yuri's Day
Двадцать минут с ангелом
Aleksandr Cherednik
Known for
Hard to Be a God
Dariya Shpalikova
Also in
Kids Playground
The Visit
Evgeny Yufit
Also in
The Mad Prince: Playing XO
The Urine Crazed Corpse Catchers
Igor Bezrukov
Also in
The Wooden Room
The Urine Crazed Corpse Catchers
Sergey Vinokurov
Pavel Fetisov
Known for
The Rifleman of the Voroshilov Regiment
Aleksandr Sokurov Director · Yuriy Arabov Screenplay Gustave Flaubert Author
First release September 4, 1989 · Produced in Germany, Russia · Production Interpromex Industrieanlagen GmbH
Production
Lenfilm
Production
Interpromex Industrieanlagen GmbH
Production
Germany · Russia
Produced in
Languages
Original title
Спаси и сохрани
Original language
Russian
Spoken on screen
Russian
Release dates
Canada · September 4, 1989
Premiere · Source: IMDB (Montreal)
No release date listed for United States.
Brazil
September 5, 1990 · Theatrical
Czechia
May 4, 1998 · Limited theatrical
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Some details come from TheTVDB.