Andrey Rublev

Plot synopsis:
Note: The following synopsis refers to the original, 205 minute version of the film.
Andrei Rublev is divided into eight chapters, with a prologue and an epilogue only loosely related to the main film. The main film charts the life of the great icon painter through several episodes of his life. The background is 15th century Russia, a turbulent period characterized by fighting between rival princes and the Tatar invasions.
The film's prologue shows the preparations for a hot air balloon ride. The balloon is tethered to the spire of a church next to a river, with a man named Yefim (Nikolay Glazkov) attempting to make the flight by use of a harness roped beneath the balloon. At the very moment of his attempt an ignorant mob arrive from the river and attempt to thwart the flight, putting a firebrand into the face of one of the men on the ground assisting Yefim. In spite of this the balloon is successfully released and Yefim is overwhelmed and delighted by the view from above and the sensation of flying, but he can not prevent a crash landing shortly after. He is the first of several creative characters, representing the daring escapist, whose hopes are easily crushed. After the crash, a horse is seen rolling on its back by a pond, a symbol of life – one of many horses in the movie.
I. The Jester (Summer 1400)
Andrei (Anatoly Solonitsyn), Daniil (Nikolai Grinko) and Kirill (Ivan Lapikov) are wandering monks and religious icon painters, looking for work. The three represent different creative characters. Andrei is the observer, a humanist who searches for the good in people and wants to inspire and not frighten. Daniil is withdrawn and resigned, and not as bent on creativity as on self-realization. Kirill lacks talent as a painter, yet still strives to achieve prominence. He is jealous, self-righteous, very intelligent and perceptive. The three have just left the Andronikov Monastery, where they have lived for many years, heading to Moscow. During a heavy rain shower they seek shelter in a barn, where a group of villagers is being entertained by a jester (Rolan Bykov). The jester, or skomorokh, is a bitterly sarcastic enemy of the state and the Church, who earns a living with his scathing and obscene social commentary and by making fun of the Boyars. He ridicules the monks as they come in, and after some time Kirill leaves unnoticed. Shortly, a group of soldiers arrive to arrest the skomorokh, whom they take outside, knock unconscious and take away, also smashing his musical instrument. As the rain has stopped the three monks thank the villagers for allowing them to shelter and continue on their way. As they walk on the heavy rain starts again.
II. Theophanes the Greek (Summer–Winter–Spring–Summer 1405–1406)
Kirill arrives at the workshop of Theophanes the Greek (Nikolai Sergeyev), a prominent and well-recognized master painter, who is working on a new icon of Jesus Christ. Theophanes is portrayed as a complex character: an established artist, humanistic and God-fearing in his views yet somewhat cynical, regarding his art more as a craft and a chore in his disillusion with other people. His young apprentices have all run away to the town square, where a wrongly convicted criminal is about to be tortured and executed. Kirill talks to Theophanes, and the artist, impressed by the monk's understanding and erudition, invites him to work as his apprentice on the decoration of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow. Kirill refuses at first, but then accepts the offer on the condition that Theophanes will personally come to the Andronikov Monastery and invite Kirill to work with him in front of all the fraternity and Andrei Rublev, who according to Theophanes' comments has some fame as an icon painter in the outside world.
A short while later at the Andronikov Monastery, a messenger arrives from Moscow to ask Andrei for his assistance in decorating the Annunciation Cathedral with Theophanes the Greek. Both Daniil and Kirill are agitated by the recognition that Andrei receives. Daniil refuses to accompany Andrei and reproaches him for accepting Theophanes’ offer without considering his fellows, but soon repents of his temper and tearfully wishes Andrei well when the younger monk comes to say goodbye to his friend. Kirill is jealous of Andrei and in a fit of anger, decides to leave the monastery for the secular world, throwing accusations of greed in the face of his fellow monks, who also dismiss him. Kirill stumbles out of the monastery into the snowy countryside and is pursued by his dog, but Kirill savagely beats it with his walking stick and leaves it for dead. Andrei leaves for Moscow with his young apprentice Foma (Mikhail Kononov). Foma is another creative character, representing the light-hearted and practical-minded commercial artist. Still he seems to be contemplative enough to get along with Andrei.
III. The Passion According to Andrei (1406)
While walking in the woods, Andrei and Foma have a conversation about Foma’s faults, especially lying. Foma confesses to taking honey from the bee garden, after Andrei notices his cassock is tacky, and smears mud on his face to soothe a bee sting. While Foma has talent as an artist, he is less concerned with the deeper meaning of his work and more concerned with practical aspects of the job, like perfecting his azure, a colour which in painting was often considered unstable to mix. They encounter Theophanes in the forest, and the old master sends Foma away. As he leaves, the apprentice finds a dead swan and pokes at it with a stick. We cut to banks of a stream where Andrei and Theophanes are arguing about religion, while Foma cleans his master's paint brushes. Theophanes argues that the ignorance of the Russian people is due to stupidity, while Andrei says that he doesn’t understand how he can be a painter and maintain such views. This section contains a reenactment of Christ's Crucifixion on a snow-covered hillside which plays out as Andrei recounts the story and expresses his belief that the men who crucified Jesus were obeying God's will and loved him.
IV. The Feast (1408)
Camping for the night on a riverbank, Andrei and Foma are collecting firewood for their group when Andrei hears the distant sounds of celebration further upstream in the woods. Going to investigate he encounters a large group of naked pagans, who are conducting a torch lit ritual for Midsummer. Andrei is intrigued and excited by the behaviour of the pagans but is caught spying on a couple making love, is tied to the crossbeam of a hut in a mockery of Jesus' crucifixion and is threatened with drowning in the morning. A woman named Marfa (Nelly Snegina), dressed only in a fur coat approaches Andrei. After explaining that her people are persecuted for their beliefs she drops her coat, kisses Andrei and then unties him. Andrei runs away, and is lost in the dense woods, scratching his face. The next morning Andrei returns to his group, including Daniil, and as they leave on their boats a group of soldiers appear on the riverbank chasing after several of the pagans including Marfa. Her partner is captured but she makes her naked escape by swimming into the river past Andrei’s boat. He and his fellow monks look away in shame.
V. The Last Judgment (Summer 1408)
Andrei and Daniil are working on the decoration of a church in Vladimir. Although they have been there for several months the walls are still white and bare as Andrei is doubting himself. A messenger arrives with word from the furious Bishop to say they have until the Autumn to finish the job. On a nearby road in the middle of a field of flowers Andrei confides to Daniil that the task disgusts him and that he is unable to paint a subject such as the Last Judgement as he doesn’t want to terrify people into submission. He comes to the conclusion that he has lost the ease of mind that an artist needs for his work. Foma, impatient and ambitious, resigns and leaves Andrei's group to take up the offer of painting a smaller, less prestigious, church. Stone carvers and decorators of Andrei's party have also been working on the Grand Prince's mansion. The Prince wants the work to be done again more in line with his tastes but the workers already have another job, at the mansion of the Grand Prince's brother, and refuse. On a path through the woods soldiers accost the artisans on the orders of the Grand Prince and gouge their eyes out, so that they cannot replicate their work. Back at the church Andrei is dismayed by the news of their fate and angrily throws paint and smears it on one of the walls. Sergei (Vladimir Titov) one of the young apprentices who escaped the attack unharmed reads a random section of the bible aloud, at Daniil's request, concerning women. Durochka (Irma Raush) (whose name identifies her as a holy fool or Yurodivy), wanders in out of the rain and is upset by the sight of the paint on the wall. Her feeble-mindedness and innocence leads Andrei to the idea to paint a feast.
VI. The Raid (Autumn 1408)
While the Grand Prince is away in Lithuania, his power-hungry younger brother forms an allegiance with a group of Tatars and raids Vladimir. We see flashbacks of the Grand Prince and his brother attending a religious service in the church, and see the rivalry and animosity between them. The invasion of the combined armed forces on horseback and the resulting carnage is shown in great detail. The city is burned, the citizens are murdered and women raped and killed. One scene shows a horse falling from a flight of stairs and being stabbed by a spear. Another shows a cow being set on fire. Foma narrowly escapes being killed in the city and escapes into the nearby countryside, but as he is crossing a river he is shot in the back with an arrow and killed. The Tatars force their way into the barricaded church, now fully decorated with Andrei's paintings, where the majority of the citizens have taken refuge. The Tatars show no mercy and massacre the people inside and burn all the painted wooden altarpieces. Andrei saves Durochka from being raped by killing a Tatar with an axe. The Bishop's messenger is cruelly tortured to make him reveal the location of the city's gold, which he refuses to do. After being repeatedly burned, he has liquid metal from a melted crucifix poured into his mouth and is dragged away tied to a horse. In the aftermath only Andrei and Durochka are left alive in the church. Andrei imagines a conversation with the dead Theophanes the Greek, lamenting the loss of his work and the evil of mankind, while Durochka distractedly plaits the hair of a dead woman. Andrei decides to give up painting and takes a vow of silence to atone for killing another man.
VII. The Silence (Winter 1412)
Andrei is once again at the Andronikov Monastery as famine and war grip the country. He no longer paints and never speaks, and keeps Durochka with him as a fellow companion in silence. Several refugees discuss the problems in their respective home towns, and one man talks in a broken voice of his escape from Vladimir. He is recognised by a younger monk as the long absent Kirill. He has suffered during his time away from the monastery and begs the father superior to allow him to return. His wish is granted but he is instructed to copy out the holy scriptures fifteen times in penance. A group of Tatars stops at the monastery while travelling through the region, much to the concern of Andrei and Kirill who experienced their brutality first hand. Durochka is too simple minded to remember what the Tatars did and is fascinated by one of the soldier's shining breastplate. The group taunt and play with her, but the soldier takes a liking to her, putting his horned helmet on her head and dressing her as a bride, finally deciding to take her away with him as his eighth, and only Russian, wife. Andrei attempts to stop her from leaving, but she is determined and rides away with the Tatars. Kirill talks to Andrei for the first time since they both left the monastery, and he assures him that Durochka won't be in any danger, as harming a holy fool is considered bad luck, and she will be let go. Andrei continues his menial work of carrying large hot stones from a fire with tongs to heat water for the monastery, but drops the stone in the snow.
VIII. The Bell (Spring–Summer–Winter–Spring 1423–1424)
Andrei’s life turns around as he witnesses the casting of a bell for the Grand Prince. Boriska (Nikolai Burlyayev) is the young son of a bellmaker; all his family have died of a plague that has ravaged the area. He tells the Prince's men that he is the only one who possesses his father's secret, delivered at the death bed, of casting a bronze bell and persuades them to take him with them as he is the only person left alive who can make it successfully. Boriska is put in charge of the project and frequently contradicts and challenges the instincts of his co-workers when choosing the location of the pit, the selection of the proper clay, the building of the mold, the firing of the furnaces and finally the hoisting of the bell. Even Boriska expresses doubts that he will succeed in making the bell ring. The process of making the bell grows into a huge, expensive endeavour with many hundreds of workers and Boriska makes several risky decisions, guided only by his instincts. As the furnaces are opened and the molten metal pours into the mould, he privately asks God for help. Andrei silently watches Boriska during the casting, and the younger man notices him too.
During the bell-making, the skomorokh from the first sequence makes a reappearance amongst the crowds who have come to watch the bell being raised up and he threatens to kill Andrei, whom he mistakes for the man who denounced him years earlier and therefore led to his arrest, torture and prison sentence. Kirill intervenes on behalf of the silent Andrei and later privately confesses that his sinful envy of Andrei’s talent dissipated once he heard Andrei had abandoned painting and that it was he, Kirill, who had denounced the skomorokh. Kirill then criticises Andrei for allowing his God-given talent for painting to go to waste and pleads with him to resume his artistry, to no response.
As the bell-making nears completion, Boriska’s confidence slowly transforms into a stunned, detached disbelief that he’s succeeded at the task. The work crew takes over as Boriska makes several attempts to fade into the background of the activity. Once the bell has been hoisted into its tower the Grand Prince and his entourage arrive for the inaugural ceremony as the bell is blessed by the priests. As the bell is prepared to be rung the royal entourage is overhead discussing their doubts that it will. It is revealed that Boriska and the work crew know if the bell fails to ring the Grand Prince will have them all beheaded. (It is also overheard that the Grand Prince had his brother, who raided Vladimir in The Raid sequence, beheaded.) There is a quiet, agonizing tension as the foreman slowly coaxes the bell's clapper back and forth, nudging it closer to the lip of the bell with each swing. A pan across the assembly reveals white-robed Durochka, leading a horse (preceded by a child, presumably hers) as she walks through the crowd. At the critical moment the bell rings perfectly, and she smiles. After the ceremony, Andrei finds Boriska collapsed on the ground, sobbing. He admits his father never told him the secret of casting a bell. Andrei comforts him, breaking his vow of silence and telling the boy that they should carry on their work together: “You’ll cast bells. I’ll paint icons.” Andrei sees Durochka, the boy, and the horse walk off across a muddy field in the distance.
The epilogue is the only part of the film in colour and shows time-aged, but still vibrant, details of several of Andrei Rublev’s actual icons. The icons are shown in the following order: Enthroned Christ, Twelve Apostles, The Annunciation, Twelve Apostles, Jesus entering Jerusalem, Birth of Christ, Enthroned Christ, Transfiguration of Jesus, Resurrection of Lazarus, The Annunciation, Resurrection of Lazarus, Birth of Christ, Trinity, Archangel Michael, Paul the Apostle, The Redeemer. The final scene crossfades from the icons and shows four horses standing by a river in the rain.

Tags: cruelty, murder, allegory, violence, atmospheric, flashback, romantic

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