1940. Paris is occupied. And what if, with the flood of bombings, the war carried off the Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and The Raft of the Medusa? What would Paris become without its Louvre? Two men who seem to share nothing in common – Jacques Jaujard, the deputy head of the Louvre, and Count Franz Wolff-Metternich, in charge of the German commission overseeing French art collections – join forces to preserve the museum's treasures. Through this little-known story and a humanist meditation on art, power, and civilization, Alexandre Sokourov gives us his portrait of the Louvre.
