当代俄罗斯影坛最重要的导演亚历山大·索科洛夫，于1989年将《包法利夫人》创造性地改编成《拯救与保护》，其作品的典型主题和特征都出现在这部影片中：宗教思想，灵与肉的剧烈斗争，对死亡的迷恋，以及细致的心理物理学。

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.

Emma vit à Tachkent, en Ouzbékistan, où exerce son époux, le Docteur Bovary. Elle s'y ennuie et s'y endette.

По мотивам романа Густава Флобера "Мадам Бовари". В фильме сохранены персонажи и сюжет романа: замужество, попытки любви, крах, отчаянье и самоубийство героини.