I have now seen most of Andrei Tarkovsky's fine films including Ivan's Childhood and Nostalghia. The sci-fi masterpiece Solaris was surprisingly my least favourite and I enjoyed Steven Soderbergh's take on the famous Plish noel better. The fact that I didn't quite enjoy Tarkovsky's original film as much at first viewing may also mean I need to revisit it like Villeneuve's Arrival I appreciated much more the second time. In any case, as it stands Stalker and The Mirror were my favourite Tarkovsky movies until I finally got through the long 205 minutes if Andrei Rublev.
Andrei Rublev is not the best painter biopic ever made, Frida (2002), Mr Tuner (2014), Lust for Life (1956) or the 210min Edvard Munch (1974) would be better.
Andrei Rublev is however much more than a movie about a painter or painting. Instead, it paints a painful and powerful portrait of life of the fifteenth-century, Middle Ages or medieval period in Europe, which we now sometimes refer to as the Dark Ages. Russians were fighting with Tatar (Turko-Mongol) raiders and invaders and with their religious Orthodox Christianity dogmas cemented since the 10th century. Rublev was a religious iconography painter with undoubted artistic skills, yet he serves to also represent the power of institutional organized religion over the unconvinced and terrorized population as we see eloquently when a non-believing woman is chased by menacing men near a river. Atheism came into vogue in Russia during the Soviet era when this movie was made and released in 1966 so we can wonder what the reactions of the audience to a lot of the religious focus of the film were.
Beyond religion, Tarkovsky touches human themes of purpose and passion. He questions the human condition with loyalties and the vagaries of war, rape, plunder, and pillage. What does it that to raise a kid? A village? What does it take to murder nearly everyone in a village?
Maybe not so much. I am also thinking of Elim Klimov's soviet WWII masterpiece Come and See (1985) where villagers in the "Enlightened" Modern Ages suffer a similar fate in different times and context. Are we doomed to repeat this savagery today in different ways? Will 2022 be different than 1422?
Technically Tarkovsky manages exquisite visual scenes with trusted DOP, Vadim Yusov from Ivan's Childhood. This time he manages even more poignant composition, wide lens, motion and a mix of beautiful slow contemplative shots and actions sequences including invasion, fire, fighting, and horse falling, among highlights. The images are seriously superb and carry the story with immersive sensibility.
The images are stunning and stay with me, the questions too. A haunting reminder of humanity's penchant for masked or overt savagery with self-appointed superiority and rationalization of control of ideas, people and property.
Andrei Rublev is not the best painter biopic ever made, Frida (2002), Mr Tuner (2014), Lust for Life (1956) or the 210min Edvard Munch (1974) would be better.
Andrei Rublev is however much more than a movie about a painter or painting. Instead, it paints a painful and powerful portrait of life of the fifteenth-century, Middle Ages or medieval period in Europe, which we now sometimes refer to as the Dark Ages. Russians were fighting with Tatar (Turko-Mongol) raiders and invaders and with their religious Orthodox Christianity dogmas cemented since the 10th century. Rublev was a religious iconography painter with undoubted artistic skills, yet he serves to also represent the power of institutional organized religion over the unconvinced and terrorized population as we see eloquently when a non-believing woman is chased by menacing men near a river. Atheism came into vogue in Russia during the Soviet era when this movie was made and released in 1966 so we can wonder what the reactions of the audience to a lot of the religious focus of the film were.
Beyond religion, Tarkovsky touches human themes of purpose and passion. He questions the human condition with loyalties and the vagaries of war, rape, plunder, and pillage. What does it that to raise a kid? A village? What does it take to murder nearly everyone in a village?
Maybe not so much. I am also thinking of Elim Klimov's soviet WWII masterpiece Come and See (1985) where villagers in the "Enlightened" Modern Ages suffer a similar fate in different times and context. Are we doomed to repeat this savagery today in different ways? Will 2022 be different than 1422?
Technically Tarkovsky manages exquisite visual scenes with trusted DOP, Vadim Yusov from Ivan's Childhood. This time he manages even more poignant composition, wide lens, motion and a mix of beautiful slow contemplative shots and actions sequences including invasion, fire, fighting, and horse falling, among highlights. The images are seriously superb and carry the story with immersive sensibility.
The images are stunning and stay with me, the questions too. A haunting reminder of humanity's penchant for masked or overt savagery with self-appointed superiority and rationalization of control of ideas, people and property.