孩子眼中的世界在这部电影里美妙的展开,父母双亡的小玛丽(凯特·马伯里 Kate Maberly饰)来到苏格兰的亲戚家住了下来。这是个美丽而又有点神秘的庄园,尤其是秘密花园更是玛丽心中的一个大谜团。原来,玛丽的姨母曾经在自己这个花园的千秋上丧命,姨父便从此紧锁了花园大门。
无意中发现了钥匙的玛丽打开了花园的大门。从此,花园成为了玛丽与大自然水乳交融的圣地。玛丽还带上了长期坐在轮椅上的表弟科林(海登·普劳斯 Heydon Prowse饰),他本来封闭的视野在神奇的大自然面前变得豁然开朗,而朋友迪康(安德鲁诺特 Andrew Knott饰)更是在这里和他的鸟儿朋友们聊天,秘密花园的大门就这样通向了孩子们心中的天堂……
Short film Empire is based on a radio drama Sorry, Wrong Number by the American writer Lucille Fletcher. Actually, Sokurov draws on a single theme forming the background for the story of the thriller — the woman's illness… The heroine is bed–ridden and her only means of communication with the outside world is her telephone — until a killer interrupts the conversation…
Sokurov removes all the dialogues, leaving us alone with the heroine — “a living skeleton” among the refined, with a touch of Modern–style, furnishings — who is listening to a radio broadcasting of Traviata, with its pleas for mercy and love. An elegant coffin–home is the spatial centre and symbolization of the entire film. And inside the coffin we certainly see the actress — the famous Russian ballerina Alla Osipenko who plays not only the heroine but also her own self.
This metaphoric cinema–image bears an allusion to the great “handicapped” Sarah Bernhardt who was reported to sleep in a coffin, as well as to the entire complex of aesthetised Decadence, converting an apology of Death into a lifestyle. Here is the key to the code of the title. Empire is a style that attempted to reanimate the dead ancient harmony. The heroine of Sokurov's film communicates with her phone as the only partner, and sort of interferes with the beyond, attracting this air — intangible yet saturated with danger. It is from the radio air that she accumulates both pleasure and tranquillity — the aria of dying yet beloved Violetta, while the killer's silhouette materializes from the phone air. A chamber pot, overturned and spilt by the killer in haste, remains the only evidence of human activities in this boudoir of Death. Sokurov's metaphor, clad in naturalistic details, produces the effect of ironic disclosure: “a wet spot” is left after a symbol.
The film was shot as a study work of a VGIK student S.Sidorov. At that time Sokurov did not have a chance to launch a project of his own, therefore he used this possibility to work. Visual conception of this film anticipates a considerable number of Sokurov's future experiments: light that models the space, levelling of colours, correlation of contrasting textures.