Departing sharply from Goethe’s version of the tale, Sokurov’s Faust inhabits an earthy, 19th-century world of primitive autopsies and medical rituals. He becomes obsessed with the beautiful Margarete and desperately turns to a physically grotesque moneylender to conjure their union.

The last piece in Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s “tetralogy of power,” a loose adaptation of Goethe’s masterwork, won the Golden Lion award in Venice. With distorted visuals and absurdist verve, Faust is a cinematic feat made of medical discoveries, philosophical musings and erratic passions.