Mirror (PG.)
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. 1975
Starring Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Larisa Tarkovskya. Partly black and white. In Russian with subtitles. Out on Blu-ray and DVD from Curzon Artificial Eye. 107 mins.
A cinematic poet isn't really something to be. The movies disdain poetry – it's one of the things I love about them. The humble page indulges them but the cinema is ruthless with them, and will expose any chancer with highfaluting notions of the lyrical or poetic, no matter how small the budget. Many have tried, almost all have failed: a cinematic poet isn't really something to be because whatever you try, the films of Andrey Tarkovsky are going to dwarf them, and none of them will dwarf your efforts quite as much as Mirror (or sometimes The Mirror), a plot less, loosely autobiographical, free flowing book of memories. It's a tiny epic, trying to encapsulate not just a person's whole life but also that of Russian itself in the Twentieth century
The accepted interpretation of Mirror is that it is the dying reminisce of a poet. Woody Allen had a comedy routine back in the 60s about being lynched by the Klu Klux Klan and just before being hung, another person's life flashes before his eyes. Mirror is something like that. The life that is flashing before you is completely different from you own experience, but you're connection with it is so intense, so emotional, you don't just see it, you feel it as if it were your own.
If it has a plot it is that of a man looking back over his life, from his mother sitting on the fence outside the farm, to panicking at her job at a printing press that she might have made a spelling error. It is dreamlike in a streamofconscious way that will jump around in time, from colour to black and white, from realistic to surreal, filmed to newsreel footage but each scene seems to some unconscious link to what preceded.
It is dreamlike in the way that it is completely unrealistic, yet utterly real. The key is in the colours that seem just like nature but like nothing you've seen before. Many directors can give you beautiful images. They'll sit around all day and wait for the Magic Hour, just before sunset and shot something that is undeniably beautiful but removed from existence – they are like adverts for their own beauty. The images in a Tarkovsky film are equally pristine, yet also grubby and lived in. The key is in the colours that seem just like nature but like nothing you've seen before. The red of his burning fire is so elemental, so distinct, so vivid you may find it included in the show reel of your best bits that flash before you eyes when your time comes. If you were to nitpick you could argue that some of the black and white dream imagery is a bit too Joy Division album cover.
One of the notions behind the Sculpting Time season that commemorates the 30th anniversary of his death, is to push the notion that Tarkovsky's films aren't difficult, but they surely are. Rather than easy like a Sunday morning, they are difficult, elusive and enigmatic like a barn on fire surrounded by fecund greenery, a sudden wind spiriting through a forest, black and white archive new footage of Soviet era balloon journeys. They are difficult; but not impossible.
It is the most extreme of his films but possibly the easiest to embrace. In the films where he attempts a narrative you are always trying to grasp exactly what is going on, what is deliberately ambiguous, and what you haven't understood. (The ones with stories also tend to be much longer.) Mirror is just pure emotion – free of the burden of comprehension you can open yourself up to experiencing it. Like a Hollywood blockbuster it invites you turn your brain off and just experience it.
Extras.
If you think Tarkovsky's films are long winded, wait to you see people talk about them.
On the Blu-ray disc you get lengthy interviews screenwriter A.Misharin, composer Eduard Artemev and actor Oleg Yankovskiy, all of whom have interesting insights into the film but take ages to get round to them. Artemev, who is probably the most interesting of the three, has a persistent cough and always seems to get distracted during his anecdotes.
We also have part four of Mary Wild's psychoanalytical study of Tarkovsky and I did try to make it through it this time but it is ironic that a study of an artist that could express himself so clearly without word is being examined by someone whose use of language is almost impenetrable.
A flaw of this disc is that there isn't some analysis or explanation of the autobiographical and historical background to the scenes. I've seen the film probably four or five times now and almost all of it remains a mystery to me, so I think I'm ready now for some Cliff Notes to let me know what's going on.
Mirror (PG.)
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. 1975
Starring Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Larisa Tarkovskya. Partly black and white. In Russian with subtitles. Out on Blu-ray and DVD from Curzon Artificial Eye. 107 mins.
A cinematic poet isn't really something to be. The movies disdain poetry – it's one of the things I love about them. The humble page indulges them but the cinema is ruthless with them, and will expose any chancer with highfaluting notions of the lyrical or poetic, no matter how small the budget. Many have tried, almost all have failed: a cinematic poet isn't really something to be because whatever you try, the films of Andrey Tarkovsky are going to dwarf them, and none of them will dwarf your efforts quite as much as Mirror (or sometimes The Mirror), a plot less, loosely autobiographical, free flowing book of memories. It's a tiny epic, trying to encapsulate not just a person's whole life but also that of Russian itself in the Twentieth century
The accepted interpretation of Mirror is that it is the dying reminisce of a poet. Woody Allen had a comedy routine back in the 60s about being lynched by the Klu Klux Klan and just before being hung, another person's life flashes before his eyes. Mirror is something like that. The life that is flashing before you is completely different from you own experience, but you're connection with it is so intense, so emotional, you don't just see it, you feel it as if it were your own.
If it has a plot it is that of a man looking back over his life, from his mother sitting on the fence outside the farm, to panicking at her job at a printing press that she might have made a spelling error. It is dreamlike in a streamofconscious way that will jump around in time, from colour to black and white, from realistic to surreal, filmed to newsreel footage but each scene seems to some unconscious link to what preceded.
It is dreamlike in the way that it is completely unrealistic, yet utterly real. The key is in the colours that seem just like nature but like nothing you've seen before. Many directors can give you beautiful images. They'll sit around all day and wait for the Magic Hour, just before sunset and shot something that is undeniably beautiful but removed from existence – they are like adverts for their own beauty. The images in a Tarkovsky film are equally pristine, yet also grubby and lived in. The key is in the colours that seem just like nature but like nothing you've seen before. The red of his burning fire is so elemental, so distinct, so vivid you may find it included in the show reel of your best bits that flash before you eyes when your time comes. If you were to nitpick you could argue that some of the black and white dream imagery is a bit too Joy Division album cover.
One of the notions behind the Sculpting Time season that commemorates the 30th anniversary of his death, is to push the notion that Tarkovsky's films aren't difficult, but they surely are. Rather than easy like a Sunday morning, they are difficult, elusive and enigmatic like a barn on fire surrounded by fecund greenery, a sudden wind spiriting through a forest, black and white archive new footage of Soviet era balloon journeys. They are difficult; but not impossible.
It is the most extreme of his films but possibly the easiest to embrace. In the films where he attempts a narrative you are always trying to grasp exactly what is going on, what is deliberately ambiguous, and what you haven't understood. (The ones with stories also tend to be much longer.) Mirror is just pure emotion – free of the burden of comprehension you can open yourself up to experiencing it. Like a Hollywood blockbuster it invites you turn your brain off and just experience it.
Extras.
If you think Tarkovsky's films are long winded, wait to you see people talk about them.
On the Blu-ray disc you get lengthy interviews screenwriter A.Misharin, composer Eduard Artemev and actor Oleg Yankovskiy, all of whom have interesting insights into the film but take ages to get round to them. Artemev, who is probably the most interesting of the three, has a persistent cough and always seems to get distracted during his anecdotes.
We also have part four of Mary Wild's psychoanalytical study of Tarkovsky and I did try to make it through it this time but it is ironic that a study of an artist that could express himself so clearly without word is being examined by someone whose use of language is almost impenetrable.
A flaw of this disc is that there isn't some analysis or explanation of the autobiographical and historical background to the scenes. I've seen the film probably four or five times now and almost all of it remains a mystery to me, so I think I'm ready now for some Cliff Notes to let me know what's going on.
