The Mirror Reviews

• Brilliant film, terrible DVD

  
  By A2Q5DFP41X1WBF on 2002-10-27
  Having watched this movie since I was in my early teens, I have bought the DVD published by KINO ON VIDEO, and oh my, Andrei Tarkovsky must be rolling in his grave knowing what they did to his masterpiece.

  For those of you who don't speak Russian, I feel very very very bad for you, because of the terrible translation of the movie. Aside from the poems in the movie, that were previously translated by the professionals, the translation sounds as though it was done by fifth-graders. And not just because it is done in the high-school level English. HALF of the speech is not translated at all--a lot of important chatter is completely missing in the subtitles. Many things are oversimplified and revealed, instead of letting the viewer dig them out him/herself. Those of you who don't understand Russian are doomed to be tortured by such translation and never to reveal the true beauty and meaning of the original script. Having read all of the subtitles, I understood a lot of things in a wrong way, different from the way they were intended in the first place, and had zero satisfaction from the movie. Thank [deity] I'm Russian.

  The ugly yellow subtitles can NOT be removed--they will stay on the screen forever while I watch the movie and irritate and upset me with the abovementioned crimes against Art.

  The supposedly "black and white" scenes, which originally had a silver-ish quality to them, and some were in sepia, are now in plain B&W a la Fellini's La Strada. I used to have a feeling that the bushes were made out of steel and silver, but not on this DVD.

  DVD has ZERO extras, and thank [deity] they divided the movie into chapters for easy scene access, but even there they managed to screw up. Upon skipping to a chapter, the scenes do not start from the beginning, and you actually skip halfway into the characters' speech.

  For Tarkovsky movies, I would NORMALLY recommend R.U.S.C.I.C.O. editions, but not in the case of Mirror. Yes, as any R.U.S.C.I.C.O. movie, it has very good subtitles, in a dozen languages. But, the problems with the picture and sound are even worse in their edition, albeit better picture quality as opposed to the grainy KINO quality. R.U.S.C.I.C.O. tried extremely hard to make the movie more enjoyable, and, apparently, overdid it. The lighting does not match with the original movie, as they try to make every object more distinctly seen and illuminated. They increase sharpness in places where it shouldn't take place, such as "hand-on-fire" image, thus depriving the illusion that the hand is on fire. Remastered sound often fails too, as many sounds are louder than others and overlap each other out of order.

  But I digress. We have no other choice but to choose between either KINO or R.U.S.C.I.C.O. edition of Mirror. I suggest buying both :) so that you could experience the near-proper picture quality of KINO and the proper translation of R.U.S.C.I.C.O.
  
  

• An absolute must-have!

  
  By A2CV19XK9VI136 on 2000-03-13
  Andrei Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR (1974) is his most personal and artistically daring film--and to me, ultimately his most moving.

  A semi-autobiographical work, it interweaves poems, dramatic scenes, dreams and newsreels to evoke the inner symbolic world of the protagonist, his nostalgia for the past and his troubled relationships with his wife and mother in the present. At the same time it is a meditation on the nature of Russia, from the nation's role as mediator between the East and West to specific historical events such as the Stalinist purges of the mid-to-late 1930s and World War II. Indeed, few works of art say more about the Russian people with such economy.

  The cinematography, by Georgii Rerberg, is so richly detailed that it frequently takes your breath away. Many of the shots are deliberately reminiscent of paintings by Breughel and Leonardo da Vinci. The soundtrack is equally beautiful, layered with natural sounds, electronic music, classical music (by composers such as Bach and Pergolesi) and poems (written and recited by the director's father Arsenii Tarkovsky, a noted Russian poet).

  The film undoubtedly benefits from its superb cast, which includes many popular and highly respected Russian actors. The voice of the Narrator is played by Innokenty Smoktunovsky; Margarita Terekhova plays both the Mother and the Wife. Other actors make indelible impressions in smaller roles: Anatoly Solonitsyn (the Doctor), Oleg Yankovsky (the Father), Alla Demidova and Nikolai Grinko (the mother's colleagues at the printing factory). For those who speak Russian, it's a pleasure just to hear their finely tuned dialogue.

  Although the film was widely criticized for being too difficult to follow, it was also praised by many Russian critics for capturing the spirit of an entire generation. It may not be to the taste of everyone, since it is constructed more like a poem than a conventional film narrative. However, for those who are willing to make the leap of faith, it is uniquely rewarding.

  Kino on Video's new DVD looks absolutely stunning. Having seen the film a number of times in various less-than-ideal incarnations on video, I was impressed at the way the DVD captures the richness of the film's cinemtography. The film is above all a sensuous experience, so every extra bit of detail in the image and sound helps add to its overall emotional impact. Kino has used the same transfer for their new VHS edition, but the DVD is clearly preferable and it's the same price. It doesn't have any special features, unlike Kino's new release of Tarkovky's THE SACRIFICE, which includes a making-of documentary. However, it's hard to complain when the film itself and the video transfer are so satisfying. In summation, I can hardly recommend this particular title more highly.
  
  

• Stunning Evidence that Cinema can be Art

  
  By AI057MRB55YWE on 2000-06-13
  The ultimate Tarkovsky film in many ways, but the one that may prove most challenging and difficult without the proper background information. I highly recommend the Johnson & Petrie book, "The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue," it is very enlightening and makes clear the fact that "Mirror" is not a confusing film but indeed Tarkovsky's tightest and most sincere work. Incidentally, the actual title doesn't contain "The", it's just "Mirror." Truly one of cinema's greatest masterpieces, a landmark in subjectivity and the dreamworld/natural world duality. The greatest attribute of this film rests in its unflinching gaze on the depths of human experience, a fluid odyssey into the heart-straining visions of a brilliant man's soul. Considered by many Russian cinephiles as Tarkovsky's greatest film and the personal favorite of many of their finest directors. Of course, the picture quality of the DVD is much better than the VHS, but it isn't anything to get excited about. I haven't come across any fantastic Tarkovsky DVD treatments other than the Criterion "Andrei Rublev". The mother/wife and young narrator/son are played respectively by the same actors and the subtitles don't include the names, so take care not to confuse the characters.
  
  

• Unsurpassed Beauty

  
  By A2AREUQXKG7PCG on 2003-01-20
  Be sure to read Vlad's review of the shoddy quality of this DVD. As a non-Russian speaker, I am essentially spared the awful knowledge of just what has been done to this film.

  At first viewing, unless you are an incredibly perspicacious viewer, this movie will be utterly baffling, partly because Tarkovsky has gone to such lengths to blur past and present. The same actress plays the protagonist's ex-wife in the present and mother in the past and the same actor plays the protagonist's son in the present and himself in the past. Sometimes the present is in color, the past in black & white; having established this expectation, Tarkovsky then reverses it on you later. Yet other times, dreams are in color and reality is in that tantalizing shade of sepia-color-black & white that Tarkovsky has used elsewhere (especially in "Stalker").

  In fact, I was so baffled when I first saw the film that I simply gave up trying to follow the narrative and basked in the intense beauty of the film work. The dream sequence of the mother washing her hair, for instance, is utterly mesmerizing. The long shot that carries us from a table out to witness a burning building is breathtaking in all of the various reflections and reversals of angles it uses along the way. The final shot of an old women and two children walking into a field as the camera pulls slowly into deeper and deeper woods until finally the people are completely concealed by the trees often chokes me up, and I couldn't tell you why. Even the opening scene, simply a conversation on a fence by a field, is an exquisitely choreographed ballet of cinematography.

  This most personal of Tarkovsky's intensely personal body of work is essentially biographical, but no self-respecting member of the Russian intelligentsia, at least not one of Tarkovsky's disposition, could ever justify such a self-indulgence as mere biography. Consequently, we never see the protagonist, save for his hand when he is ill and overhearing his voice. This erasure of his adult self, and the inclusion of newsreel footage of key historical moments during the protagonist's life, aim at creating a generalized biography for all of Russia. An especially striking moment shows news footage of Russian soldiers slogging muddily through a bog. As soon as one has the full impression that this is human life in a thoroughly degraded condition, a voiceover of one of Tarkovsky's father's poems talks of immortality, sublime beauty, the very loftiest of human sentiments on spirituality. The contrast is deliberate, but not ironic, and illustrates a triumph of the human spirit in even the most unlikely of places and times. Elsewhere, Tarkovsky makes a religion of elevating the mundane. In his book on his work, he admits that one of his techniques (he denies there is anything symbolic in his work) is to focus on an object for so long that the viewer inevitably begins to wonder at, and thereby increase the significance of it.

  Perhaps if the subtitles were better, I'd better understand the film. As it is, the sheer intensity of the films gorgeousness never ceases to amaze me. The dream sequences alone are simply amazing. There have been other movies that might here or there exceed the Mirror in beauty for a moment or two ("Picnic at Hanging Rock" comes to mind), but I've never found one that can even come close to matching its consistency throughout. This is without question, the most visually moving film I have ever seen.
  
  

• A very special achievement in film. My DVD pick of the year.

  
  By AYH9WYU47168B on 2000-03-11
  Andrei Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR is a historical achievement in art and form. This is what great movies should be like: very personal without being overly sympathetic and corny. It was very hard for me to understand. It is about a person who is reviewing events that have occurred in his life before he dies, but the movie presents his experiences in a non-linear fashion. Probably the best way to approach this movie is to put yourself in the individual's shoes. We all think of past experiences, but not always chronologically. Even if one may find this film hard to understand, there are many beautiful moments in this film: the opening scene, the dream sequence, the print shop, the stock footage of the balloon ascent, the bird landing on the boy's head, the firing range, the fire, etc... This movie's unpopularity in the United States is living proof that many true works of cinematic art in this country largely go unnoticed. If I can direct at least one person to the works of Andrei Tarkovsky then I feel my work as a film buff is done.
  
  
• some technical remarks
  By A2AZRBFR8U4BWH on 2000-06-16
  First, regarding the framing 1:33 is very close to the original 1:37, but a little bit zoomed so lacking some parts of the picture but not too much. The quality of the master is very good (much better than any VHS) but not as good as many DVDs avialable on the market, especially compared to "Andrei Roublev" by Criterion. Also Kino on Video has transfered the monochromic newsreels in the movie (originally in sepia, orange, bronwnish tones) in plain B&W. What a pity. Last but not least, the foreign dialogues (spanish, and newsreels) are not translated, but in my opinion is not very important as it adds some mystery and make you feel like a stranger as if you were russian. Anyway, the movie is incredible and the DVD is quite good, colors scenes are stunning.
  
  
• It is all in the mirror
  By A2BPDFR58H9575 on 2006-06-16
  I just finished watching it. It's been several years since I saw it last time. I worried that I may not like it as much as I used to...
  
  I should not have worried - I love it even more now if that is at all possible. I've seen it at different times of my life - first, as a college student many years ago in Moscow; I keep returning to it all my life.
  
  When Tarkovsky's Zerkalo (The Mirror) was first released, it divided the audience completely. I remember how my friends were passionately discussing it. One girl was complaining that she did not understand anything; the movie was confusing for her, dark, disturbing, the children characters - sad, pale, poorly dressed. I remember her asking, "Why did they show a boy in the opening scene that had an awful stutter, and they never showed that boy again? What did it mean when the dying man in bed was setting a bird free? How did he get the bird on the first place?" Another friend of mine, a guy, tried to explain the things to her. He suggested that she thought about the times Zerkalo was showing, he tried to explain to her Tarkovsky's symbolism where the bird could be representing life and soul of the main character and the boy with the stutter could mean that it was most difficult for people to communicate and understand each other.
  
  I only listened to their argument and did not participate because I had not seen the film yet. When it finally happened, Andrei Arsenievich Tarkovsky was presented at the screening and he talked to the audience before the show. I remember him repeating over and over that there were no tricks, no puzzles, and no tongue-in-cheeks in the film; that every symbol, image, dialog, and sound was there because they belonged there. He asked us if we had questions. Someone from the audience suggested that we saw the film first, and then, asked questions. Tarkovsky replied that from his experience, not many viewers would sit through the film and who ever would, usually leave in silence, not asking anything. And then he told us a story. After Zerkalo was completed, it was first shown to the group of the famous critics. After watching it, critics started to argue about it, trying to find the hidden meaning and make sense of what they just saw. It went on and on until the cleaning lady who came to the screening room and had been waiting for the end of discussion to do her job, asked them for how long they would stay? Someone said to her that they were discussing a very complicated film, and they needed time to understand it. Cleaning lady asked, "What is that you do not understand in this film? I saw it also, and I understood everything." Critics were silenced for a moment, and then, one of them asked the woman to share her thoughts on Zerkalo. She answered, "It is about a man who had caused too much pain to the ones whom he loved and who loved him. Now he is dying and he is trying to ask them for forgiveness but he does not know how." After the pause Tarkovsky said that he had nothing else to add about his film to what the cleaning lady had to say.
  
  I never understood complains that Zerkalo is a very confusing, difficult, and dark film. No, it is clear and deep as a mirror. Every time you look at the mirror, it will show you new depth and reflections. Past, presence, future, memory, love, guilt, forgiveness, beauty, sadness, nostalgia, and sacrifice - the mirror reflects it all -just watch closely.
  
  My verdict - The Best Film ever made, the top of my list (tie with Andrei Rublyov).
  
  
  
  
• The challenging depths of memory and time
  By on 2004-02-23
  In his films, Andrei Tarkovsky rarely gives the audience any help in grasping what is happening on the screen. He demands a level of attention and receptivity which is not always automatic with most audiences, since our viewing habits are formed by easier stuff. It's a bit like trying to read Heidegger or Kant after a life of reading nothing but pulp novels. In my estimation "Mirror" is his most difficult film. A depiction of the inner world of a dying man, the film jumps between different eras of the protagonist's life, with sometimes only very subtle connections between them. Shots are often composed for their emotional impact, rather than their narrative effect, the idea being that the audience will feel what the protagonist feels as he reflects on his life.

  I often see films described as poetry, but here is a case where that comparison is most precise. Like poetry, layers of meaning are waiting to be discovered in this film. Each time I watch this film it affects me more and more. My last viewing, perhaps my tenth, was the most profound. I encourage everyone to give this film the time it demands, and deserves, because the rewards are great.

  The quality of this dvd, like others have written, is not the best. The version put out by Artificial Eye in the U.K. is reported to be superior, and is probably the better choice if you have a multi-region player. I have given this disc 5/5 stars because the film is so great it overpowers the limitations of the disc, and there isn't a compellingly better version available in Region 1 at the moment.
  
  

• The Finnegan's Wake of Russian Film
  By A17UXBRD37ST1 on 1998-12-16
  Having some knowledge of Tarkovsky the man as well as Russian history may prove useful to penetrating this extraordinary, layered film. A man (never seen, but presumed to be the director) reviews his own life, as well as the lives of other people integral in his life--chiefly his wife and mother (played by the same female actor), set against a Russian historical backdrop from the early Stalin years to the early 70s. Those seeking exposure to Tarkovsky, but are turned off by his longer, more ponderous works (think _Andrei Rublev_), should be pleased to find that this film clocks in at about 100 minutes, and packed with images that are at once breathtaking and startling. Tarkovsky is sort of an anomaly to other Russian filmmakers because his films seemed to deal less with pro-Soviet propaganda and more with aesthetic composition, and _The Mirror_ is no exception. Juxtaposing film speeds, b&w v. color photography, Tarkovsky subtly suggests the importance of individual perception and individual focus shaping the way we view key events in our lives. This film also suggests that this conflict of the self is also both cyclical and basically universal. The film may bring to mind the key works of Joyce, albeit in a more compartmentalized version. And the images themselves are positively magnificent! My personal favorites are the bird landing on the child's head, and the collapsing wall amidst a rainstorm. Not an easy film to watch at all, but definitely worth the effort. Tarkovsky paved the way for other filmmakers, notably Peter Greenaway and Theo Angelopoulous, who saw film as more effective as portrait instead of narrative device.
  
  
• My Favorite Movie in the Whole World
  By AMMUIH6KYAUTH on 2007-08-01
  There is a scene in Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror where a young child looks through a book of art. The camera is close, showing only the pages of the book and the child's hand as he flips from picture to picture. Occasionally he will stop and linger on a favorite drawing. It is obvious that the book is a treasured possession, whose pictures have yet to lose their magic for the young boy. At one point a leaf, pressed between the pages, comes into view only to be swallowed up again.
  
  This seemingly innocuous scene, halfway through the movie, is just one small example of why The Mirror is unquestionably my favorite movie ever. The film is the pure essence of nostalgia and each viewing is a revelation of memories I had long thought lost. I too had certain favorite books that I would turn to over and over again, flipping through their pages and taking comfort in the familiar pictures. I too would often press flowers and leaves between the pages of books with my parents.
  
  Watching this movie feels like memories of the past flooding back from some forgotten abyss. The grey rainy skies, the kittens licking up cream, the flickering kerosene lantern, the sledding on the hill, the small junk pile in the forest, the snow covered trees, the wooden floors and furniture, the windswept fields, the log fence, all of these things are important images from my childhood. And yet there is far more to The Mirror than that.
  
  Tarkovsky reaches beyond mere concrete memories. Many moments in the film have an almost mystical appeal. The slow static shot of the disappearing handprint on the table mesmerizes the eye until the final trace has gone. The bottle that inexplicably rolls off the table seems to act of its own volition. The man walking away in a great field of grass who turns to the camera just as one mighty gust of wind sweeps across the field towards the viewer and is gone. Scenes such as these are joined seamlessly with the movie and serve to reinforce the almost dreamlike reality we are presented with.
  
  The music, selected from Pergolesi, Purcell, and J.S. Bach is, amazingly, equal to the images. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the superlative final scene set to Bach's monumental opening chorus from St. John's Passion. It is the single most moving scene I have ever viewed on film, its central images consisting of little more than a woman biting her lip and a child shouting a great life affirming cry to the skies while Bach's painfully beautiful music builds to an epic climax. The perfect union of film and music found in this scene is staggering in its power.
  
  I suspect I am not the only one who considers himself a kindred spirit to The Mirror. Growing up in rural Kansas without a great deal of money surely helps, but the images are more universal than the tone of these passages lets on. Perhaps that is part of The Mirror's appeal: to those who identify with it, it seems as though the movie was made only for them.
  
  This theory gains a great deal of credence when I think of the parts of The Mirror I don't feel such a strong connection to. I had no lack of a father figure as a child yet that dominant plot point somehow doesn't stand in the way of my identification with the movie. I obviously didn't grow up in the middle of a war and have no connection with Russian politics and history, but again, it makes no difference. Oddly enough, these two central ideas in the movie don't even seem to register when I look back on it.
  
  So just what is the mirror about? The Time Out film guide sums it up quite well saying: "Tarkovsky goes for the great white whale of politicized art - no less than a history of his country in this century seen in terms of the personal - and succeeds." That is a rather broad description and not a particularly exciting one. Of course if that were all that the movie was about, I would not be writing this review.
  
  When it comes down to it, The Mirror is an elusive film to classify. I've seen it over and over and still have a hard time getting a firm grip on its structure. Powerful images with their own internal logic flit by, skittering at the edges of our consciousness like the memories of a lost day from our childhood. Complex narratives follow children and adults, past and present. Powerful documentary footage is interspersed along with slow motion dream sequences. The closest description I can come up with is that The Mirror is a collection of images, all related and all central to the human experience.
  
  The Mirror is Tarkovsky's finest film, and for certain kindred souls it truly will be a mirror. A mirror to every memory long thought lost, it will show each person who looks a different reflection.
  
  
  
  
• The Great Dream
  By A3OJ012QPTGMLR on 2005-09-01
  At the pinnacle of his powers, Tarakovsky made this remarkable auto-biographical work, pushing cinema's powers to replicate dreams in a way that renders Surrealist 'dream' paintings redundant. Bergman, Resnais, and Bunuel had tackled the dreamworld too. But here, the commitment is ravishing. The best way to imbibe its spell is to surrender any urgency to make narrative sense, and allow the images to wash over you. This is true of all Tarakovsky, but moreso here. His familiar images, of rain, sodden earth, wood-floored interiors, sussurating meadows and leaves, red-haired women, and kids with lip herpes, are all displayed. His aural net is on a par with the visuals; the barking dogs, Bach chorales, the squark of a beheaded chicken, sumptuous and thrilling. The prologue has a stuttering boy cured by a hypnotist and announcing (in lieu of Tarakovsky) that he will now speak clear and strong. The Kafkaesque corridors of the printworks, the family home all paint the new language that the director felt film, alone, could offer. As a vehicle for memory, dream, perception and the blurred edges they inhabit, this confessional film is close to describing how consciousness flickers in and out of control and focus. Key images, even those supplied by old newsreels, establish chronolgical footholds. Note the slightly askew sound and image tracking used sparingly, the minutely slowed down feeling of some passages. Tarakovsky's father occasionally reads his poetry over the film, adding tonal tension. In fact he is more present through voiceover than his embodied character in the film. His mother is present, at times tantalizingly so. Yet she remains withdrawn from the son, which may account for the love Tarakovsky subsequently projected with such intense palpability on the textures of the world. Watch this over and again. These textures and vivid images do not dilute.
  
  
• Perfect except for the translation
  By A1R9QZWD4W8QTK on 2005-07-23
  I've watched my VHS copy of 'Mirror' around ten times and thought I 'knew' the film well enough. But the DVD is a revelation. The different film stocks and treatments -- washed-out colour, sepia, black & white, newsreel -- and Tarkovsky's pared-down images come through crisper than ever.
  
  The sound is the real bonus, though. 'Mirror' mightn't have been recorded in 5:1 surround, but the new audio track reveals a side of the film I didn't even know existed: a deep, almost physiological soundtrack of eerie music and painstakingly placed effects that heightens the oneiric atmosphere by several notches and which was totally lost on VHS. I know there was cross-pollination of ideas between Tarkovsky and Kubrick, and aurally 'Mirror' now appears as a more subtle, subliminal version of '2001'. Unfortunately the closing (opening!) chorus from Bach's St John Passion still sounds distorted; but even that has its charm.
  
  So I now have even greater admiration for what was already the finest film ever made about childhood and memory. Tarkovsky plays and plays on a handful of heart-stoppingly beautiful images, the sort we all have from our earliest youth -- luminous, sublime, terrifying, warming, sad -- the ones we can neither let go of nor fathom. The sense of desperately clinging to something that has lost all meaning is also brilliantly transferred into a series of acerbic, yet necessarily (for the time) oblique political comments. It is probably the most aesthetic film I have ever seen, in the sense of pure consciousness delighting in itself. (Do I pass the Tarkovsky-Fan Waffle Test?)
  
  The only minor quibble is the new translation, which was done by a Russian, seemingly with a Russian-English dictionary. I'm sure it's faithful to the original, but it is sometimes grammatically obtuse and frequently unidiomatic. I don't know why they couldn't reuse the translation on the VHS version. It may be more serious a problem for those who don't already know 'Mirror', but please don't let it put you off one of the most profound artistic experiences you could have on film or elsewhere.
  
  
• A mirror that reflects memories, poems and dreams
  By A1BD0IDVL32T2B on 2006-04-28
  "Mirror" is one of those movies which offers facts, poetry, reminiscences and dreams without making the audience clear what it is their are looking at. There is no use of black and white when a memory creeps in, there's no dreamlike music that sets in when a sc?ne is occurring in the mind of a sleeping protagonist. Remember Alain Resnais' "Last year at Marienbad" in which present and past are mixed together and dissolve in each other without technical warnings for the audience. Resnais, by the way, did the same in his landmark debut "Hiroshima mon Amour" and would make a carreer out of movies in which chronological way of story telling is thrown out of the window very early on.
  Also the great Spanish surrealist Luis Bu?uel enjoyed confusing his viewers this way with films like "The Exterminating angel", "The phantom of liberty" and "The discrete charme of the bourgeoisie", mixing seemingly realistic moments with surrealistic immagery and dreamlike-sequences.
  Of the nowadays successful operating directors, David Lynch is perhaps the most widely known, with his non-logical, or rather a-logical movie puzzles like "Lost Highway" and his masterful creation "Mullholland Dr."
  
  "Mirror" now, is an intimate view of ordinary life in Russia seen through the eyes of someone who doesn't seem to share much onscreen time. The result, in the hands of the amazing Andrej Tarkovski, is however not ordinary but extraordinary in the biggest sence of the word. Startling images follow one another up in fast time, in a movie that is, on the contrary, to say the least, deliberatly paced (as are all of Tarkovski's efforts, who, all of his film carreer and, wanted spirituallity and contemplation as main goals.)
  
  Water, fire, wind, poems, all elements are part of the memories we witness, as are the faces that pass by the camera, faces filled with, or rather scarred by, deeply rooted maturity unexplained sorrow, and sheer character.
  In less gifted hands, all shown technical flares would be just show-offs, but Tarkovski makes sure that every everlasting vision portrayed here, is not only top-notch in its form, but is also the basic for his story telling and is quiet hunt of meditation. And although "Mirror" sees to be more a labyrinth of associative imagery and mis-en-sc?ne than a straight forward narrative, it's a huge story one can find `between the poetic lines' if one is patient enough to go along with Tarkovsi's own private sculpting of time.
  
  At the end, "Mirror" is more than anything a cinematic experience, it's a movie that reflects both vision and thoughts... pondering and meandering... but ever so intimate and rewarding.
  
  
  
  
• Impossible to view only once
  By A220059NEEBEX7 on 2004-04-13
  I admit that I was not properly prepared when I first watched "The Mirror" (or "Mirror" or "The Looking Glass" or whatever it's really supposed to be called.) It was not my first Tarkovsky movie, but I found it disjointed, confusing, incohesive, etc. I even thought of turning it off in the middle and giving up on it. But as I thought about it the next day, the meanings and symbols slowly became clear. What was confusion and exasperation the night before turned into intrigue and curiosity the next day. I actually watched the entire movie again the next night. What I discovered was a beautifully and poetically created masterpiece that discards the narrative structure in place of disjointed memories and images. The film is more like a painting in that to understand it each portion of the canvass must be mulled over and revisited to get the true impact.
  The images in this film are absolutely stunning and unforgetable; the burning barn, milk dripping from an overturned glass...
  It may go without saying but this film is for those interested in film as art and not film as blockbuster entertainment. In fact, I'm sure that if this film were shown even in an art house half of the audience would get up and walk out.
  
  
• Do not miss the plot
  By A2XOTSI4RNFT6A on 2009-09-29
  The points made by other reviewers about this film's nonlinearity and being much like poetry are, of course, valid. I remember seeing it for the first time back in the 70s and realising that I was in the presence of a radically new kind of art: exciting and powerful but also almost alien, as if the film had been imported from Mars. Then the world cinema started to catch up little by little, but as the 80s turned into the 90s the mainstream went simplistic again, and today's young viewers of the 'Mirror' are, in all likelihood, having the very same thoughts about a film from Mars. We can only guess whether the new language of cinema introduced by Tarkovsky 35 years ago will ever be widely adopted.
  
  However, there is a coherent story there too - and its existence is often missed or even vehemently denied. It is essentially the life story of the narrator, who never appears in the frame, but through whose eyes many of the scenes are presented. The man has his share of human flaws, yet his perception is particularly sharp, and his mind and spirit are attuned to the history and destiny of his country and to the cultural heritage of the humankind - the latter represented in the film by the music and visual references to famous paintings, which elevate the action and place it in the global context. There are repeated hints in the film that these personal qualities - a mixed blessing to put it mildly - run in the family and hence will go on even though the narrator dies in his 40s. The words of the smoking doctor in the deathbed scene (who is played by the co-author of the screenplay) are mistranslated in the English subtitles, but the key part comes across: the man is dying because there are such things as memory and conscience.
  
  The storyline requires a bit of effort to comprehend - not because it was made obscure by Tarkovsky, but because of the impact of the following factors:
  
  First of all, the action moves backwards and forwards between three time planes: 1930s, 1940s and 1970s. Recognisable time markers are provided most of the time, but it is still possible to get confused, so it is important to pay full attention to what is shown and said. This difficulty is not unlike the one that a reader might have in comprehending the storyline of 'The Sound and the Fury' by Faulkner, who at one stage even contemplated a special edition of the novel with fragments set in different time printed in different colours.
  
  Secondly, what we see in the film is not only the supposed reality but also memories (distorted as they always are), dreams (with their own logic that can never be fully grasped) and prophetic visions (one example: a boy on a snow-covered hillside takes in the view which re-creates the 'Hunters in the Snow' by Bruegel, and sees not only the forthcoming end of the war but also the much later border conflict with China). Again, it is not too difficult to figure out which scene falls into which category.
  
  Thirdly, the same actress plays the narrator's mother and his ex-wife. Similar things have been done in many other films; nevertheless, I heard form several people that this, rather than anything else, was what confused them most in the 'Mirror'. In fact, the two characters look, act and speak considerably differently (a credit to the actress!), and in any case the time plane of any given episode makes it clear which of the two women appears in it: nobody is time-travelling in this film, except for the very last sequence where time is warped or rather absent altogether.
  
  Those factors are vital for the structure of the 'Mirror' and contribute to its outstanding artistic qualities and cult status, but they can also put off viewers who are either unable or unwilling to play by the rules laid down by Tarkovsky. But then again, isn't this problem common to all true art?
  
  
  
• 3 stars for the DVD, not the the (masterpiece!) film
  By A3R5BJC6OZ29CI on 2009-02-04
  I have three versions of the film on DVD now--the Kino, the Ruscico, and the Russian Krupny Plan version (without subtitles).
  
  Kino's transfer is not bad considering its age; my main critique is that the color balance is overly cool. The RUSCICO edition looks better in some respects but the print is slightly pinkish and some of the scenes are transfered overly bright, as Vlad, another reviewer, has noted.
  
  I agree that Kino's subtitles are frustratingly incomplete in several dialogue scenes. It's a pity, because there are many wonderful small exchanges between the characters that really add texture to the script. The RUSCICO subtitles are more complete but they terribly botch the poetry, which is central to the film's effect. That sin is not easily forgiven, and for that reason alone you should get the Kino version.
  
  Visually, neither version can hold a candle to the stunning new digital restoration that Mosfilm has released on DVD in Russia through Krupny Plan. In an ideal world, Kino would license the new Mosfilm transfer and beef up the subtitles. In the meantime, you might as well go with the current Kino DVD. "The Mirror" is Tarkovsky's greatest work and a masterpiece of world cinema--it's the kind of film you find yourself returning to now and then to savor its elusive beauty.
  
  
• MIRROR is just one discovery.
  By A3LD5O3WR83I5F on 1999-09-16
  If you are seeking a film that can demonstrate an image's capacity to exceed beyond powerful, this is just one of Tarkovsky's films that achieves this. It may take some effort to stay with the film's patient and meandering pace, but that's the revel of this picture. If you have ever wondered what it might feel like to visualize a dream while awake, MIRROR is a film to watch. Any of Tarkovsky's movies introduce you to a visual experience and vocabulary that is wholly unique in its execution and original in its expression. There is a tremendous amount you can learn from his films, especially if you want to be a filmmaker. Technically, they are a marvel. His films are executed with such flawlessness you might forget to question how they are done. MIRROR is exceptional in that Tarkovsky's explorations and meditations on issues of self, relationships, mothers, women, time, love, memory, history, art and poetry are deceptively straightforward. Experience this movie. There are new and exciting things to discover in MIRROR as well as any of Tarkovsky's films.
  
  
• Poignant autobiographical portrait!
  By A16CZRQL23NOIW on 2005-06-24
  This is probably the most intimate film of Andrei Tarkovsky and somehow this film meant for him the back to his slave roots, but expressed in such original way. In first place, we have the presence of his father the poet Arseni Tarkovsky supporting stunning visual episodes, specially the unforgettable sequence of the Spanish Civil War; second the magnificent camera work , underlining slender passages of his childhood and showing the fantastic landscapes of his homeland; third the allusive first shots of a man who has lost the essential perspectives; fourth the shocking and hallucinating sequence of a boy making piss in a art book, trying to erase the traditionalism understood as the memory's imposing; five the mirror is a journey inside oneself , a lovable cite to Cocteau's Orpheus in search of our forgotten ancestors. Somehow this film anticipates Bergman's fanny and Alexander, but with a very huge difference; Tarkovsky expresses himself poetically, instead of Bergman who subordinates the image as the final product of his will, lacking poetry.
  
  
  
  
  
• KINO or RUSCICO?
  By A2M22E7J0D8LDT on 2008-05-04
  This is a case where there can be no argument whatsoever: Ruscico's "Zerkalo" wins hands-down. The image is far superior, the audio is vastly superior (so clear that things can be heard whose existence would not even be suspected on the Kino disk), and the subtitles are more extensive and clearer.
  
  Allow me to mention: The audio I refer to on Ruscico's disk is the original mono; the drastically-modified 5.1 mix is an abomnation. (It proves, however, that there are no such things as ghosts -- if there were, Andrei's would bedevil the guy that did the 5.1 remix till the end of his life.) From what I've read, not all editions of the Ruscico DVD include the mono track, so beware! On the subject of subtitles, I have to say that I far prefer Russian-written English subs to English-written English subs any day. The Russian-written subs may be ungrammatical and contain Russian idioms you may not catch, but they are far subtler and clearer (and usually more extensive) than any written by a native English-speaker.
  
  An interesting additional tidbit on the Ruscico disk: Check the photo gallery to see how Andrei achieved the lovely wind effect at the end of the scene between Margareta Terekhova and Anatoly Solonitsyn.
  
  Watching Ruscico's "Zerkalo" is like watching a different movie.
  
  
  
• Andrei Tarkovsky's deeply personal and evocative meditation on childhood, family, and memory
  By AGVWTYW0ULXHT on 2010-01-27
  Tarkovsky's fourth feature length film was also his most overtly personal project, in which he creates a kind of mirror of his own life: growing up in Russia during WWII, raised largely by his mother with a distant father, going through divorce. It is a kind of collage of images, depicting the life of a child who becomes an unseen narrator, whose life becomes a kind of repetition of the life of his father, and whose mother is played by the same actress who ends up playing his estranged wife. The past blends with the present; documentary footage of life during wartime blends with lifelike recreations; dreamlike sequences blend with depictions of harsh realities. It is an intriguing film - almost unprecedented in its experimental approach to autobiography. Perhaps the closest parallel in cinema is with the films of Chris Marker, notably Sans Soleil, in which highly personal reflections, displaced onto a fictional narrator and accompanied by richly evocative imagery, are elevated into reflections on time and memory and culture that transcend their semi-autobiographical locus. The film's images will resonate profoundly with those who have seen Tarkovsky's other works. Essential viewing for those who appreciate the work of Tarkovsky - even if it is probably not the best introduction to his work - and highly recommended for lovers of inventive approaches to cinema, or to those interested in Russian culture and history.
  
  It's hard to know what to say about this dvd transfer; I've seen the film projected from an old print more than a decade ago and as far as I recall this version looks better than that. I'm happy to have it available on dvd at all, and can say that the power of the film does come across in Kino's version. There are no "extras" on the disk - nothing more than the film itself.
  
  
• Don't Get Bogged Down with the Technical Issues, Just Watch It.
  By ANM2SCEUL3WL1 on 2008-05-11
  I know there are websites devoted to comparing different transfers of Tarkovsky's movies. The age-old Kino vs. R.U.S.C.I.C.O.. They both have their pluses and minuses. There is first, the difference in color. Kino (this edition) is more saturated, but the audio track has a tin-can reverb to it, delaying it almost to the point where the music doesn't match. And then there is the matter of translation.
  
  I consider myself a huge fan of Andrei Tarkovski's work. I own both versions, and had to obtain it long before Amazon even carried it. (They are the same editions though). I am reminded of an old scratchy King Pleasure record I own. It's been played for so many years, you could hear every scratch, pop, and click on it. But it doesn't take away the least bit from the enjoyment. Why? Because IT IS THE QUALITY OF THE WORK THAT COUNTS, not the quality of the media.
  
  I have seen this movie on the big screen at Lincoln Center in New York City recently, carefully restored with corrected translation. I came home and watched both my copies the next day to compare. In my opinion, as a non-Russian speaker (but a graduated English major), the minor discrepancies and lack of transfer DOES NOT outweigh the fantastic quality of film-making presented here.
  
  Tarkovsky is one of the recent Russian film greats, and this movie is seen by many as the apex of his creativity. Last time I checked, film is more than mere images. It is audio, visual, script, angles, color combined to tell a story. You have Tarkovsky's father (the acclaimed Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky) reciting his stately poems in his rich voice over long continuous shots detailing the director's childhood memory in the countryside, when his father went off to fight the war.
  
  Created scenes intersect with historical footage to present a fugal magnum opus onscreen. Tarkovsky studied Arabic in the university, and he had a love of J.S. Bach's music (which is present here along with Purcell's works and Eduard Artemyev) which means he has an appreciation from Zakhrafa art and labyrinthian schemes. For those who may not be familiar with Bach's compositions, three or four melodies interweave with each other to create a *fugue*, which uses sound to play off each other in a device called counterpoint. Tarkovsky recreates this structure visually, where time is nonlinear, and each actor plays several characters, switching between present and past.
  
  This is Tarkovsky's way of presenting our persona as a composite of all our experiences and memory.
  
  Do yourself a favor. Don't wait for the right version. This movie is strong enough to pull through all the scratches, pops, hiss, clicks, and color discrepancies.
  
  
• Poor DVD, distracting degraded experience
  By A3ADA4TND5VOY6 on 2007-12-03
  I found this KINO DVD to be very disappointing. The fullscreen format is a huge problem (I have to assume, never having seen Mirror in widescreen), as one the great joys with Tarkovsky is his mastery of widescreen. And the translation is very bothersome; I know no Russian, but it is obvious that a significant portion of the dialog is never translated. We have to assume the skipped portions are unimportant to the story, but what a distraction. This DVD takes what should be a 5 star experience for Tarkovsky fans, and turns it into 3 stars.
  
  I am fairly new to Tarkovsky: I really love Stalker, one of my favorite movies of all time. Solyaris is very good, although a bit depressing for my tastes. Mirror I am more than willing to work with (and understanding it clearly requires work: other reviewers suggest doing some background reading combined with multiple viewings). But I will wait for a better (hopefully Criterion) DVD that gives Tarkovsky and Mirror their proper due.
  
  
• s-titles
  By on 2002-04-06
  Subtitles are "glued" to the screen, there is no possible way to turn them off, this idiocy spoils the greatnes of the visual sequence...
  
  
• Pleasures of the Ineffable
  By A3N94LNED0IF0R on 2001-12-06
  As with all work by the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, "The Mirror" is an enigmatic, not quite describable film composed of finely honed imagery and evocative sounds that combine to produce an experience both delicate and overpowering at the same time. Tarkovsky's is among the most personal of personal filmmaking, in which each film seems a quest to re-invent the cinema over and over again. Rooted in the rhythms and routines of the everyday, his films are nonetheless the opposite of banal, finding in a glass of spilled milk or the movement of the wind through the trees an exquisite opening on to the transcendent.

  For such an uncompromising, original artist, every film is in a sense autobiographical, a record of his thoughts and feelings at the moment of filming. Yet in this, Tarkovsky's most explicitly autobiographical film (it is based on his childhood experiences during World War II), the results are relatively unsatisfying. There are still breathtakingly beautiful images, arresting sequences of inexplicable power, the same singular vision. What is surprising is how *fashionable* "The Mirror" is, and as a result, how dated. Made in the early 1970s, "The Mirror" indulges in many late 60s/early 70s mannerisms, including a non-linear narrative, stream-of-consciousness editing, dreams to explain the irrational and the use of newsreel footage as a kind of collective memory.

  While masterfully employed, these techniques are not really worthy of a director who has proven repeatedly his ability to move beyond fashion and create his own standards. Dependent on editing, these devices are also just a tad removed from Tarkovsky's basic skills. His best work flows with the coursing sparkle of the streams and puddles he loves to film. There are times in the "The Mirror," on the other hand, when the cuts from one shot or scene to another are more forced than flowing, a touch too disconnected to compel as anything other than filmmaking necessity.

  "The Mirror" is nonetheless vividly textured, with an almost voracious response to light, shade and materials. (I have never seen a more effective use of the *grain* of film stock to enhance the tactile qualities of the image.) Like "Solaris," it makes a good introduction to Tarkovksy's work for viewers who might be a little put off by his more uncompromising efforts. Which is to say that in addition to dating the film, "The Mirror's" stylishness works to smooth over some of the director's rough edges. Viewers already familiar with Tarkovsky's cinema will not be seriously disappointed, perhaps just a little surprised, as I was, that he too could succumb to the momentarily fashionable.
  
  

• Another fantastically beautiful Tarkovsky masterpiece
  By A2DEB4K5G9X21C on 2010-01-07
  Mirror is Andrei Tarkovsky's visually transcendent, artistically revelatory autobiographical film on lost innocence and emotional abandonment. Presented as a languidly paced, achronological cinematic montage of modern day life, personal memories, historical news footage, and dreams, Mirror is an introspective journey through the course of human existence, hope and despair, success and frailty: a television broadcast of a young man seemingly cured from stuttering through hypnosis; a neglected wife (Margarita Terekhova) humoring a village doctor who has lost his way; a custodial argument between a faceless narrator (Innokenty Smoktunovsky) and his ex-wife; a precocious young man trying the patience of his military instructor (Yuri Nazarov). To attempt to conform these images into some coherent plot or universal conclusion is meaningless. After all, Mirror is a reflection of Tarkovsky's haunted soul: his search for spirituality, connection, Truth - exposed through indelible images that inevitably define our own imperfect lives, however trivial or mundane.
  
  Andrei Tarkovsky deliberately obscures time by using the same actors to portray the two phases of the narrator's life: the fatherless boy attempting to reach out to his distracted mother, and the distant father unable to relate to his self-absorbed son. Anachronistic newsreels of world events are interspersed to provide environmental reference and tonal shift. The structure of the film constantly evolves through the use of flashbacks and flash forwards, defined through chromatic shifts. This results in a film that is thematically cyclical, reflecting the narrator's pattern of alienation and emotional isolation. The absence of logical order in the film elicits a visceral reaction from the audience: the knowledge that we have experienced truth in all its intoxicating beauty and desperate longing... and perhaps even a brief connection with the artist himself.
  
  
• The Force of Memory
  By A3T689SS856U3N on 2008-10-15
  'The Mirror' is Tarkovsky's autobiographical masterpiece about which there is both little and a lot to say. As all his work, seeing this movie is something one must experience as it is such a different kind of cinema as that of any other director. Not a movie for those with a short attention span one could argue that The Mirror is about the overwhelming power that memories can have on our lives. As stated the movie more or less is autobiographic as we see Tarkovsky's childhood years in the country, to which many Russians fled from WWII, brought there by his mother. His father, the famous Russian poet Arsenii Tarkovsky is not present, except through citations from his poetry by means of a voice over, while we look at beautiful Russian scenery or archive images of soldiers walking through swamps. Apart from a visual feast the movie also offers an auditorial banquet not only of recited poems but also wonderful music, which plays a crucial part (as always in Tarkovsky's movies).
  The story timeline of the movie at first viewing may prove to be somewhat confusing, as there is continuous interplay between past and present. In the present time of the movie the main character is a divorced man, obviously an intellectual, who both spiritually as well as emotionally is in a crisis. In this state he has a series of childhood recollections and the movie throws in an extra free of charge bit of 20th century Russian history into the mix. It is shown how he grew up in the country, how Spanish civil war survivors fled to Russia, how he was military trained in Leningrad as a boy during WWII and got to know his first love, how his mother lived in a printing shop under Stalin's censorship, Soviet-Chinese border tensions after the Chinese revolution etc.
  Confusing in all this is that his mother in the flashbacks is played by the same actress as the main protagonist's current ex-wife, even though he says as much in a phonecall with his ex that when he has childhood recollections of his mother she always looks like his ex. The story itself is pretty simple, but it's complex through the way it is structured, especially the first time one sees the movie, but this is true for any Tarkovsky movie. Each movie should be watched at least three times to get any kind of understanding of what they are about, which however doesn't mean one can't immensely enjoy them first time around. What worked for me on first viewings was not over analyzing too much and simply let the movie take me along, the perfect acting, the beauty of the images, the musical splendor and magnificent poetry.
  This was the first Tarkovsky movie I ever saw a long time ago and it changed the way I looked at art in general and cinema in particular.
  It's my sincere wish to any Tarkovsky 'newbie' to have a similar wonderful experience.
  The one star missing in my judgment is due to the rather bad visual quality of this release, which is quite a shame and, as a Russian friend assured me, quite bad translation. (Luckily Moskwood did a better job on both counts.)
  
  
  
  
  
• Tarkovsky's Masterpiece
  By A2AJMMNO4S3IK on 2005-01-03
  Mirror (rus., Zerkalo, 1975), is unquestionably the masterpiece of Andrei Tarkovsky's opus. It is an autobiographical film, with a rather unconventional timeline. Its structure is somewhat convoluted, making it relatively inaccessible on first viewing. Fortunately, the beauty of its images and its lyricism carry you along, and most certainly compel you to a second viewing, and then you are "hooked." At least, this was my experience with this film.
  
  Mirror represents the recollections of a dying man, weighing the episodes of his life in his conscience. It is also autobiographical reflection of the author on the final stretch of the race toward the finish line of his life. His thoughts ebb and flow, as he contemplates his life's journey.
  
  What kind of mirror is it? It's the author's broken mirror, whose shards have been re-assembled and glued in a random fashion, with each piece reflecting an aspect of his soul. Tarkovsky's mind wanders as he recounts some of the events of his past at least the way he remembers them. The memories are set against a Russian historical backdrop from the early Stalin years to the early 70s. Tarkovsky weaves newsreels, poems, and dramatic scenes to suggest his symbolic inner world; his relationships with his mother, his ex-wife, and his son, and with the world in which he has lived.
  
  The film, based on Tarkovsky's own screenplay. Some press interviews and writings of Tarkovsky leave no doubt that all of these events are true recollections concerning his family, his life as he has lived it and felt it. All the episodes are really part of his family history, except for one, and he undertook to literally replicate what was fixed in his memory. The only fictional episode is the illness of the narrator, which is intended to convey the author's spiritual crisis. As such, this fictional contrivance is a foundation for all of the others, utterly true remembrances.
  
  The pace of the film is slow. As in most of Tarkovsky's other films, we see long shots, which lead to lengthy contemplations on the viewer's part, requiring the absorption of a considerable amount of fine visual details. This in turn leads the viewer into an emotional involvement with the characters. By using long shots and few cuts in his films, Tarkovsky gives the viewers a sense of time passing, and the relationship of one moment to another, as opposed to the speedy jump-cut, Hollywood style. Tarkovsky developed a theory of cinema that he called "sculpting in time," which was, using the unique characteristic of cinema as a medium, to take one's experience of time and alter it. This film is the best example of the application of his theory.
  
  Not only does Tarkovsky "sculpt in time" by manipulating events in an apparent random-time fashion, he also manipulates time within a particular event by using mirrors, which reflects different times, past or future, which are not of that event. There are many such examples throughout the film.
  
  The beauty and lyricism of the images are due to Tarkovsky's unmistakable poetic style. The childhood memories, hypnotic in their intensity, are the most visually stunning filmmaking imaginable. These dream-like sequences are also the most enigmatic moments of the film, which most likely accounts for the film's alleged impenetrability.
  
  Mirror is about the lives of the most important figures in Tarkovsky's life: his mother and his wife (interestingly, played by the same actress). From Tarkovsky's own admission, his father had no inner influence on him. His mother was the most important person in his life so much so that, for Tarkovsky, there was no question that she had to appear in person in several scenes.
  
  Although Tarkovsky never made an explicitly political film, the relationship of the individual to history was central to his world view. In terms of a person's spiritual experience, what happened to that person yesterday may be as significant as what happened to humanity a hundred years ago. From that point of view, the film is about the nature of Russia as a mediator between the East and the West, as portrayed in the scene where Ignat reads Pushkin's letter to Chaadayev (October 19, 1836), and a little later in the film, in the footage of Russian soldiers holding back a demonstration of Chinese Maoists.
  
  Mirror is also about the Stalinist purges of the mid-to-late 1930s and World War II. Tarkovsky shows us archive footage of contemporary events with complete detachment in contrast with the extreme intimacy of the memories. It is expressed, for example, by the apparently strange inclusion of the documentary footage of the Soviet army crossing the Sivash marshes. The poem by his father, Arseni Tarkovsky, which accompanies the Sivah crossing, is particularly telling.
  
  To summarize this beautiful and unusual film, I will quote the author himself (upon leaving the screening of Mirror), "When I left the cinema I was thinking that here was a film made as a poem, that it was - a cinematic impossibility it would seem - an intimate lyrical monologue."
  
  
  
• Breathtaking! Buy this movie.
  By A1DRTU2EHI23IM on 2004-01-13
  One of the most moving and beautiful films I've seen. Contrary to what I'd expected, I found it pretty easy to follow. Some of its qualities: sensual yet spiritual; realistic yet imaginative. A masterpiece, not just in my view.
  
  
• The best that ever happened in cinematography
  By A3PYZYJQOZMXK6 on 2000-08-23
  There are only very few like Tarkovsky who draw movies (Paradjanov, Fellini, to name but a few). I guess the word "painter" may not only describe oil, pencil and canvas, but rather be attached to a way of thinking and portraying your ideas and thoughts. "The Mirror" is definitely among the best portraits (rather a self-portrait) combining distant childhood memories (perhaps even transformed into some subconscious images) with poetic background. Tarkovsky uses his father's verses not only throughout this movie, but also in other films he has created, "Stalker" being one of them. When watching his work you may as well see or rather feel something familiar, something that perhaps has happened to you. And that's what makes his style so different. Try to watch the film all at once without using "Fast Forward" or "Stop" button, that way it's understood much better.
  
  
• Yes, this is Art in Cinema
  By A1K548TDR33DMN on 2001-11-08
  Taking all other superlatives out, this is perhaps the best Russian-language film ever created. Nostalgia may be the rival. It is a piece of Art and it will probably stay in Annals of world cinema together with masterpieces by other artists like Visconti, Pasolini, etc. A must see for any serious viewer; mass production lovers beware - you'll call it boring.
  
  

• Stalker: A Film by Andrei Tarkovsky
• The Sacrifice
• Solaris - Criterion Collection
• Andrei Rublev (The Criterion Collection) Spine #34)
• Ivan's Childhood - (The Criterion Collection)