peedur

Tarkovsky claimed he could never make films like Spielberg. His character was too angular, brittle, sensitive, defiantly unique and deeply influenced from the childhood by poetry - both in language and images. The Sacrifice (released in 1986) found me in my first year of film school just months before his death. It completely derailed my film education.

I believed he touched something in me I was unprepared for: fireproof faith ("Nostalghia") contrasted with widespread disbelief in the world ("Stalker," "The Sacrifice," "Andrei Rublyev"), magic, the mixed frailty and resilience of people, ("Ivan's Childhood", "Andrei Rublyev") dream/unconscious language ("Mirror") and a deliberate obfuscation of direct symbolism)( all of his films). He also stressed the untranslatable nature of the Russian experience. His small book "Sculpting in Time" was worn out by graduation The Sacrifice has some Chekov surface features but is pure Tarkovsky beneath. Some of the most hauntingly astounding cinematography by Sven Nykvist and characters who all appear drained of the joy of life. The absurd end is can be viewed as parable or at face value - it's not a symbol to be read but an incongruity to be felt. It's film as a thing made of irreducible complexity.