Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)

Zerkalo
108 min

imdb

Mr. Brack6 has called Stalker his favorite film on this site, and I must follow suit and call this Tarkovsky mine. I was able to see it in the cinema tonight, and it was one of the most spiritually significant experiences of my life.

I’ve seen it before on dvd, and it’s always been something special and moving, but seeing it projected like this was something else entirely. See it if you can… no guarantees you’ll feel the same way (another viewer overheard walking out of the theater seemed to have only gotten out of it that Tarkovsky is a proponent of patriarchy and russian nationalism[?]) but if you can go into it with an open souleye and you’re a human being who isn’t completely overcome by fashionable ironic amoralism… it might really work.

For me it’s one of the grandest achievements of art, all art… it encapsulates and makes timeless what it is to be a being possessed of consciousness. Breathtaking (or rather breath-holding) moments of sublime stillness, small movements (wind or the breath of god?), tearing tears out of my eyes, all of them earned, all paid for. And if you lost your soul, you can still appreciate it on a purely technical, film school level; in this realm its achievements are vast… and still but a fraction of its riches.

Win.

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)

This is I think the third time I’ve seen it- I think it’s my favorite movie.  The color palatte, which ranges from monochromatic to luscious greens and blues, is amazing.  The sound is a work of art in its own, like a brilliantly mixed field recording over which the rather heavy dialogue is layed.  The composition of the shots has a great amount of variety and ingenuity- the shots both create the vibrant atmosphere and allow the actors to use a great deal of subtlety in the facial expressions and body language.  The dialogue is complex, and full of mystery- much of which is never fully resolved.  The pacing is marked by moments of stillness and contemplation.  And finally, the concept- the screenplay was written by the authors of the novella Roadside Picnic, the original source of the idea.  The details of the story are different but the overall idea is much the same.

Everything comes together for me perfectly with Stalker, it is easy for me to get lost in its complex fantastic world.