I haven’t been able to get the images from Andrei Rublev out of my mind, disconcertingly they appear in my dreams. It is hard to think of a better movie than Tarkovksy’s film, then again it is no ordinary movie. It’s a beautiful composition, the invented history of a Russian icon-maker, a treatise on art and artistic integrity, a meditation on life, a recreation of medieval Russia and much more. It has all the pleasure of a novel, dragging you into its world, making you seek meaning in its images and lingering long after it is over. And yet it is pure cinema, each frame full of beauty and meaning, each frame nothing less than that overused phrase - the human condition. And in an age of rationality (Tarkovsky after all filmed in Societ Russia), it is full of the mystery and passion of faith – how we lose it, how we regain it and how it influences the course of our life. And I use the word passion advisedly, both in its conventional sense and as understood in Christianity. Is it possible for cinema to leave you in a state of grace? Astonishingly, Tarkovsky's film does just this.
Today I passed by a Greek Orthodox shop and stopped and stared for a long time at the icons in its window display simply because for a minute the images in my head and in the display were synchronized.
Andrei Rublev is much discussed so I won’t write any further. Here are some links 1, 2, 3 and 4. And here is Tarkovsky himself on the film.
Today I passed by a Greek Orthodox shop and stopped and stared for a long time at the icons in its window display simply because for a minute the images in my head and in the display were synchronized.
Andrei Rublev is much discussed so I won’t write any further. Here are some links 1, 2, 3 and 4. And here is Tarkovsky himself on the film.
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