Original subtitles

In the beginning there was a tree...

an autumn tree...

It had lost its leaves.

But there was fruit on it

left for the birds.

Snow fell already...

Strange clouds appeared, as if it were summer...

not autumn.

The sky was dark and deep.

Thunder could be heard.

There was movement over the water.

There were birds.

Birds who flew for no other reason

than beauty alone.

Then the clouds changed.

The sky became flat.

The light shone upon God's command.

A scent of lilacs...

Then the flight over water,

deep and dangerous.

I was afraid of falling...

Someone left me...

I started to feel better...

I breathed deeply.

Then movement started.

I realized it was winter.

I was cold.

I could almost touch the road...

So smooth and transparent.

Houses appeared,

like an abandoned village

under a cold sun...

Windows, roofs...

And the people?

It must be noon, but where are the people?

Grey buildings,

like prisons.

Then came the fog.

I found myself on a clearing.

For whom is all that beauty?

No one to see it... Still it's just as beautiful

or even more so.

What ideal solitude...

Perfect, cold...

Who watches me over there?

Watching me from behind that tree...

Someone cold, lonely and bored.

Soldiers walk along a path...

A row of houses...

I tried to concentrate and to recall

at least one face of those

who had lived here.

People once lived here.

I knew them.

I believe I lived among them, too.

When someone died, we wept.

We were afraid that

we were becoming fewer.

We began to move our houses closer to the road.

Everyone did so.

We all wanted to live close together.

No one wanted to live apart.

But I can't recall

whether it helped us.

Then the black sheet appeared...

Then I...

for some reason, I was walking with a monk...

We kept silent.

I have never been here before.

What awaits me?

We entered the church.

What an angry look...

A notebook in his hands...

A pensive monk stood in near obscurity.

At a bright window,

a child was being baptised.

Day and night at the same time,

on both sides of the church.

I ask my monk to stop.

He agrees and waits.

I ask him a question.

I ask him why

did Christ pray that his Father

not send him

to his sacrificial cross?

Why did

Christ, want to avoid crucifixion?

If he so loathed being crucified,

then how can I accept his sacrifice?

Why did I speak about this?

My monk keeps silent.

God knows what he is thinking about...

Perhaps about those he left behind?

And I doubt seriously

he knows the answer to my question.

The baptism is performed.

An act of will, of predestination... A duty until death.

The face of the godfather.

I can't tell what he is thinking.

What can this child know about sacrifice?

Isn't it too early?

What is he thinking about?

And he, what is he thinking about?

What are they all thinking about?

My God, help me to understand.

Is it necessary to be so strong?

Even church-going

hasn't warmed their hearts...

I say good-bye to the monk.

He invites me to the mass and blesses me.

I wanted to speak about the Prayer of the Chalice.

It must be a painful question...

These people...

These are monks, who have...

...all abandoned somebody in their former lives.

Is the price of prayer so high?

What I am doing here? Who sent me?

It seems to me I have already seen

all these people somewhere...

Surely I have.

The face of a soldier.

He looks at me and says nothing. No, he looks away.

Where am I?

Why I am here?

I see his eyes...

What right does he have to scrutinize me like this?

Other faces appear, other eyes...

What right do they have

to scrutinize me?

Who are they?

Through a window,

I see a foreign town.

It is snowing.

I see smoke above the night town.

I can't recognise it.

The shore begins to move away...

I see a strip of water.

Everything now looks like the flight

of a night bird...

Then...

I am flying above the roofs and street lamps,

and I am doing my best

not to look into windows. I still don't know the town.

Then the town disappeared from view.

There was no one around.

As if no one lived here...

Only scenery built in the night

for those living above...

to make them believe

that below, on Earth,

everything has been fine since long ago...

As fine as only a creation of God could be.

The moon came out,

Its purpose was unclear.

No light,

neither any cold warmth...

I walked over an iron deck, covered with snow...

No one was around:

Only night and sea.

I could not ask

where this great ship was going to...

Nor how did I get onto it...

The waves were black.

They had

neither sense nor compassion.

I noticed I was on the very edge of the deck.

I felt that the sea

was kind and indulgent.

It seemed full of force and generosity.

It could easily sweep me from the deck

and throw me capriciously

into the cold and evil waves...

I sank into my thoughts...

I couldn't say even to myself, what they were about.

I heard the voices of sea and wind,

and still some other music,

perhaps that of my heart.

I wanted to cry, but there were no tears.

I wanted to fall into the sea,

but I had no force.

"The sea was big",

a schoolboy wrote once.

Chekhov had smiled at that phrase.

Why have I recalled that now?

The sea began to get warm.

It seemed it was going to evaporate before our eyes.

The shore appeared suddenly.

It was cold.

There were rocks and trees...

It was twilight...

Or the night was drawing to its end.

Then there was shore,

snow under the feet, ground wind...

It was as cold as before...

but too beautiful.

Then some square in some town.

It seemed to me I was in Germany,

I can't tell why...

Through the snowy wind,

I saw gothic-style buildings...

This must be the place I had dreamed of visiting.

But how few things I will be able to see.

My life is fleeting.

I can't visit here... What a pity.

Where are the people? Just a single human face...

The movement started again.

I didn't want to be on these streets...

But presumably no other way

had been assigned for me.

Why should I need it all?

If people live like this,

if they see nothing else and follow only these roads,

what becomes of them, and what do they expect

from life?

I was trying to find my place in this stream.

Trying to understand the purpose

behind being driven westward across all this space.

Who am I?

Where are they all hurrying to in the night?

During a storm,

better to wait and not risk their lives...

They mustn't be too fond of life.

For people, work is more than life.

This is how people are.

It seemed the dawn was approaching...

There was a crossing

and a stop.

A caf� by the highway...

Then I began to realise that my travel

had a purpose.

I didn't come here by chance.

For some reason, this man has noticed me.

He smiles...

He smiles.

Very good.

A kind man.

I understand he is waiting for someone.

He comes to my table and takes a seat.

I realise he needs somebody...

I understand he badly wants to speak.

He has something to tell me.

He is kind, I know...

He begins to speak.

I listen to his voice.

"I am grateful to God

for the humility I learned in this life.

A humility that I assume with pride.

It makes me feel not inferior to the others,

but equal to them.

Equal to all people,

yet not equal to Him who created us.

I consider everyone as equal.

There was a time when I believed

to know everything, like a god.

That is why I lost myself.

I knew what we were capable of,

but I forgot that all we were capable of,

we should do

with respect for others,

for other people.

Once it happened that

I was arrested by mistake in the USA.

I spent one night in a cell.

I was treated as an inferior.

That remains my worst experience to this day.

When I came back to the Netherlands,

I was full of rage.

An indescribable rage.

Anger has almost no limits in humans.

Yes, and I fell into depression.

I slept for 9 months.

I didn't want to go out

nor to talk.

At last, I picked up the lost thread.

I went out to people.

Now I can only say I became stronger.

I will never learn

the reason of life.

But I can--

The reason is to live, to be alive...

I mean, I am happy...

to be living".

I look at him and think: If you are so happy,

then why do you need me?

A stranger, a foreigner, a mute...

He looks me in the eyes,

and continues.

"I believe in the goodness of man.

I believe in his cruelty too,

the evil side.

I think both feelings have the same power.

But there's a choice.

You can always choose between kindness

and aggression.

Aggression is a simpler solution.

But kindness is...

perhaps it sounds a little bit...

a bit like '60s, flower-power.

I would say, the most important is love.

If I were allowed

to name God,

I would name him Love.

This is the creative force,

which is very close to hate".

Then he stopped.

I understood he had said all that he wanted.

He did not need me anymore.

Surely, I will never see him again...

A pity...

The creative force

together with hate...

It's too human...

Then...

then I felt a live warmth from the stones.

I found myself in a completely different place.

The moon...

Old walls around...

An ancient tower, a lighthouse.

Is it an island?

Is this a fort on the island?

I was still alone, but someone guided me.

It was neither night, nor dawn.

Then there was...

a blossoming tree in my path.

And if this were Japan?

The branches are cold. My hands are freezing...

No, I'm not in Japan.

A door opened in the wall.

I went inside.

A wooden staircase...

An affluent interior...

The floor creaked.

Why is that frame empty?

Moonlight on the walls...

In the silence of the house

that opened its doors for me,

no one greeted me.

I studied a large painting:

A ship's return.

The separation must have been long...

People meet their loved ones...

Some are wading...

What joy...

This life is not unfamiliar.

Their joy is like ours.

They must be looking at their near ones ashore.

I am standing by the door.

They bring me in.

I'm stepping on paper,

placed to protect the parquet.

Then, a salon...

This palace must be under repair.

Who has brought me here?

Why am I here?

Paintings...

A landscape.

A river, a sail...

Silence.

If I just enter there,

I will never come back.

Human life:

Why is this boat next to the shore?

The water is pure, with a scent of grass.

Is it evening or morning?

It's morning.

What's that there?

The food-givers...

Eternal slaves of man.

And what's that?

The walls are cold...

I want to go faster, but something retains me.

As if I was going to miss something.

I travelled across an immense distance

to get here in an instant. But all is empty...

and dark around...

In that frame there is nothing either...

A draught...

A tall window...

Some music...

I believe someone has passed...

Anybody there?

No...

Then... I find myself near a windmill.

At last, I see people.

Here they are,

sitting in the boat.

They sat there once and remained forever

in their village.

That evening

is their eternal day.

The mill must be on an island.

How calm it is.

Then I fall into a kind of labyrinth...

I still can't understand

who is playing so freely with me:

And that?

A town street.

But... it's winter.

They are all frozen...

The past must have been cold.

And life was so beautiful

only because of the cruelty of winds

and the frost of the sky...

Perhaps then the Lord was especially keen

to follow the life of men

and tried them severely...

Maybe now...

he is busy creating a new, better world.

And our life is left to itself.

Then...

Sounds around me...

What's there under my feet?

That is the Tower of Babel.

Breughel...

Breughel.

Breughel.

What is it?

A philosophy or life itself?

Freedom?

Or a dream of a cage?

Who are they,

the builders of this tower?

Christians or heathens?

What does it matter?

Christians, heathens...

The Tower of Babel

and sail boats...

It was wise to put them together.

Then I understood

it was my last occasion to see the Tower of Babel.

So I said farewell to it.

I walked with difficulty towards a light.

I saw an alley in sunlight...

Gentle and kind...

...Van Gogh.

I heard someone's light steps,

yet I was sure to be alone...

I was sure to have all this only for myself...

Otherwise what was the reason

to bring me here through time and sea?

Through the wind by those terrible roads,

past the abandoned villages and freezing forests...

Pictures were hanging here just minutes ago.

What is that doing here?

The moon returned.

It made me turn.

A square in an old town...

The calm of summer...

An eternal life...

Didn't I paint this picture myself?

Didn't I see all that before me?

Every tree, every shadow...

I remember well this sky.

I remember it well,

because I waited a long time

for the cloud to move away from me,

so that I could see its reverse side

and read what was written on it:

If there is faith, the sky is alive.

Is all death below?

Above, all is life...

And everything is easy there.

An eternal life.

Pieter Saenredam.

Yes, this is his work.

I was just standing by, here on his right.

And that, he added it later...

There was no baby carriage.

These people...

They used to come here to talk.

I do remember the trees,

but I believe there were more of them.

I don't remember any children. No, no children.

And that window never did open.

Pieter invented it. Nobody knew who lived there.

Neither had I ever seen that gentleman.

St. Mary's Square.

This is St. Mary's Square.

The paint has dried. Everything has stopped.

Everything is still,

until we return to this town...

Everything will remain still.

Should we return?

But how?

The clock has stopped.

So let us restart it!

Let us restart...

The tower...

The shadows are motionless...

The sun has changed position.

No going back...

But the canvas remains warm.

Camera: Alexander Degtiarev

Sound: Serguei Modhkov

Assistant director: Alexei Jankowski

Editing and visual effects: Sergei lvanoff

a film by Alexander Sokurov

ELEGY OF A VOYAGE