Zerkalo

Plot synopsis:
This film does not have a storyline, but proceeds in a non-narrative, stream-of-consciousness form. To add to the confusion, several of the characters are played by the same actors. Margarita Terekhova plays the roles of Maria (the mother, also called "Masha" or "Marousia" in some of the pre-war scenes), and of Natalya (the wife of the protagonist as a young woman). Ignat Daniltsev is the protagonist at age 12 (Alyosha/Aleksei), as well as Aleksei's own son at age12 (Ignat).A précis to the film will certainly help the viewer through this labyrinth.The film takes place in three distinct time periods: Pre-war (1930s), War-time, and Post-war (1960s), and can be divided into fourteen sections, each of which takes place during one or more of these periods. In the following breakdown of sections, I will indicate the time period for the section and a brief description of the section's content.1) Post-war. The film opens with Ignat turning on the television set. The program shown is that of a therapist treating an adolescent afflicted with stuttering. The credits follow. The Music: J. S. Bach, Das Orgelbüchlein No. 16, "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist" (The old year now hath pass'd away).2) Pre-war. Edge of a field, Maria and a doctor who is passing by (Anatoly Solonitsyn) meet and converse. Voice-over of the narrator (Innokenti Smoktunovsky), who is obviously the protagonist Aleksei (he talks in the first person, plural, "we"). Arseni Tarkovsky's poem, read by the poet. Maria with the children, Alyosha and Marina, inside the dacha. Maria and children go outside to see the barn on fire.3) Pre-war. Interior night shots. Maria is washing her hair with her husband's (Oleg Yankovsky) help. Maria young/Maria old [Maria Ivanovna Vishniakova (Tarkovskaya)] looking in the mirror (time ambiguous).4) Post-war. Phone conversation between Aleksei and his mother, Maria.5) Pre-war. The printing shop incident. (Maria thinks she has made a misprint, "Shralin"-- slang for "excrement" -- for "Stalin"). Lisa (Alla Demidova), Maria's friend, tells her she reminds her of Maria Timofeyevna (Captain Lebyadkin's sister in Dostoevsky's The Devils), which leads to recriminations on Lisa's part.6) War-time. Natalya and husband quarrel. Ignat watches the Spanish tenants. Archive footage of the Spanish Civil War. Children being evacuated. A stratospheric balloon journey undertaken by a Kurdish aviator in 1937. Music: Pergolesi, Stabat Mater, No 12: "Quando corpus morietur fac ut animae donetur paradisi glori." (While my body here decays, may my soul Thy goodness praise, safe in Paradise with Thee). Ticker tape parade.7) Post-war. Ignat leafs through Leonardo da Vinci book. Natalya drops her purse. Ignat reads Pushkin's letter to Chaadayev (October 19, 1836) to two unknown women, one of whom appears to be modeled after the poet Anna Akhmatova (1898-1966). Ignat answers the door. Ignat and his father talk on the phone.8)War-time. Aleksei looks at the redhead girl (Olga Kizilova). Music: Purcell, from The Indian Queen, Act IV, "They tell us that your mighty powers." Instruction at the firing range where a rebellious Asafyev, a war orphan, keeps getting it wrong. War footage of soldiers unloading cargo. Coming from the firing range, Asafyev walks up a snowy hill. War footage of the crossing of Lake Sivash in Crimea. Poem by Arseni Tarkovsky, read by the poet. War footage of Russian tanks at the liberation of Prague, dead soldiers, artillery batteries, Bikini atomic test (1946). Asafyev stops at the top of the hill and a bird lands on his head, after which he takes it in his hand. Chinese crowd scene, the Soviet-Chinese conflict at Damansky Island, in 1969.9) War-time. Maria with husband leaving for the war. Children playing outside and quarreling. The father with the children. Music: J.S.Bach: Matthew Passion, Recitative: "Und siehe da! Der Vorhang im Tempel..." (And see there! The veil of the temple...). Cut to a picture of a Maria look-alike, "Genevra de Benci" (c. 1470), by Leonardo da Vinci.10) Post-war. Natalya and husband again quarrelling.11) Pre-war. The dacha, Maria, the children on a mat, with Aleksei voice-over. Garden scene with the children.12) Wartime/Postwar. Maria and Alyosha visit her neighbor, Nadezhda (Larisa Tarkovskaya), to sell her a pair of earrings. Levitation scene. Maria as an old woman with the children (dream). Poem by Arseni Tarkovsky, read by the poet.13) Post-war. Aleksei (narrator) on his death bed (although we never see his head), attended by a doctor and the two women from the reading of Pushkin's letter scene (Section 7). Aleksei reaches for and holds a bird in his hand.14) Pre-war. Maria and husband. Music fades in, opening number of J.S.Bach's St John Passion: Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm in allen Landen herrlich ist! (Lord, our Sovereign, whose glory in every land is magnificent!). Maria old, with young Alyosha and his sister, and Maria young, briefly in the background (dream).

Tags: mystery, psychedelic, avant garde, flashback

Review:
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.
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.
To many Mirror is possibly Tarkovsky's most inhibitive and uninviting work, be as it may not a story in the traditional sense but rather an assemblage of images, scenes, and thoughts which at first sight seem to have very little in common and just drift back and forth with no obvious literal explanation.
Interestingly this is for two solely different reasons - whereas I admire Kurosawa for the manner in which he managed to perfect the art of cinematic storytelling, Tarkovsky deserves praise for wanting to shake cinema out of its complacent acceptance that films should simply tell a story and little else.
Of course Tarkovsky is not alone in having done so (Marker and Greenaway immediately spring to mind), but what distinguishes him from other "art house" directors is that he has managed to take this style of film making and drive it to a stage that can be described as almost perfect.I personally interpret Mirror as a man's life flashing before his eyes before he dies; his relationship with his wife and mother (both played by the same person, in an ingenious move on Tarkovsky's behalf), his children, his friends, the history of his home land, his own childhood.
This is where Tarkovsky's genius comes to fore - to create a film which does not dictate to an audience how to feel by manipulating them via music or mise-en-scene, but to make it the other way around.
So much more lies beneath the surface, as we are shown a reflection in a mirror that momentarily purports to be reality, but need not necessarily be interpreted as such.The film's magic derives from Tarkovsky's surefooted ability to succeed with a succession of intense, beautiful images.
The film wants to distil as much of that precious beauty as possible in a number of disjointed moments, coloured through memory and imagination, from childhood through to the point of death.Apply it to your own life.
Ignoring other prominent thematic fields like family or marital problems and Russian or Soviet history (from Pushkin via Stalin to the current fear of a Chinese threat), two topics can be extracted from the movie which Tarkovsky seems to be very concerned about: 1.The confrontation of Man and Nature as two opposing powers, and 2.The continuum of time (the equation of present, future and past).The importance of topic 2 can be made clear by just considering the film's structure: The different time levels are intertwined in an often deliberately confusing way so that it actually becomes difficult to identify them.
He takes into his hand a moribund bird, which is lying on his bedside table, squeezes it, and then lets it go so that it can fly up into freedom.Is it the same bird that breaks through a window glass in another scene, or that places itself on the head of that orphan boy whose parents have perished in the Leningrad blockade, as if he wanted to protect him?The birds of "Zerkalo" seem to take up a symbolic function similar to the dogs in other Tarkovsky movies (i.e.: "Nostalghia", "Solyaris"): They represent some kind of link between Man and Nature; they are frontier guards at the gates of the unknown.Tarkovsky sees Man and Nature as two opposing, incompatible powers.
If you have experienced Mirror, and by experience I mean much more than just having watched it (the experience may take multiple viewings to achieve) then you will realise the futility of describing or reviewing this film much in the same way as the inadequacy of a second hand account of a mystical experience.Tarkovsky was a mystic: although his religious beliefs are well known there is much less acknowledgement of his conception of God. For Tarkovsky God was everywhere and in everything, his (its) presence is felt in the rustling of leaves in the breeze, the burning of wood, the rain falling (and falling, and falling) on damp fields.
But an odd and sad experience comes from watching Mirror, the belief that your own interpretation of the world will never be so deeply poetic or deep as Tarkovsky's, and the world you see on the cinema screen seems more vivid and alive than real life ever will..
Tarkovsky stated that the artist himself does not necessarily know the meaning of an image but is compelled to express his vision.Despite some of the problems in viewing this film there are plenty of moving and mysterious moments, not least the wistful and melancholic look on the face of the mother as she lays in the grass, contemplating her children's future..
Included are film clips from WW 2, the Spanish Civil War, poetry by the director's father.It does help to know that the same actress (Margarita Terekhova) plays the dying man's wife and his mother...as he allows his memory to shift over his life.The only other director I can think of who understands the visual language of film and its significance as beautifully as Tarkovsky is Terence Malick.
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 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.
On the other hand, by not admitting you were confused by pretentious European cinema you may think you have succeeded in hiding your supposed lack of intelligence, but all you've achieved is to show that you're a coward - unable to tear apart a movie like this with the frankness that it frankly deserves.I'm told this film is about a dying man, recouping his life, childhood, divorce...
And yet, Andrei Tarkovsky weaves the hard truths and brutal realities of everyday life into Mirror's surrealist tapestry with an effortlessness that makes the film utterly compelling.
It is then stupendous that from this seemingly disjointed puzzle of images and motions, a life rearranged, Tarkovsky is able to facilitate a meditation through which emerges a single vision whereby consciousness and sensation are unified, contact, feeling, perception, past and present melded into a single narrative, free of the burden and anxiety of time.And it's even more potent that this vision having been received at the doorstep of death, before the great fear, it is filled with reassurance and equanimity, a cessation of hope and fear alike.
Like a looking glass, reflecting both clear and distorted images of the world, the picture plays like a feverish, waking dream; it is a film, as if seen from the eyes of man, slowly fading away, slipping in and out of reality.
I'm sorry if this comment isn't very clear, because every time I try to justify why this film is so brilliant, so bold, so beautiful and so unique, I fear that I cannot explain my reasoning in a manner that Tarkovsky would be proud of.
Because we are all different, yet Tarkovsky managed to create a film so difficult, yet so personal to himself and everyone else that lays their eyes upon it, at the same time.
The Mirror-An exceptionally brilliant film about childhood,memories and war directed by Andrei Tarkovski..
Apart from its focus on childhood memories as well as war,Russian director Andrei Tarkovski's film "Mirror" is a good mix of past as well as present times.Both time segments are given equal importance.They have been filmed in such a meticulous manner that one can observe how clearly past is separated from the present.The Mirror/Zerkalo is the autobiographical tale of an ill filmmaker who is about to die.
I loved many parts of this movie, but some of them didn't add anything to the general picture.Watch it for: a) great music b) young Ignat (or maybe it was Alosha) watching his reflection in the mirror sitting by the fire in silence c) the narrator's mother look into the camera while contemplating the future of her yet unborn child d) the dreams sectionstrong 7/10This movie is often referred to as an 'Ulysses' of cinema.
This is also, arguably, his most personal film as many of its scenes heavily draw on Tarkovsky's own childhood such as the evacuation from Moscow to the countryside during WW2, a withdrawn father, and a mother who works as a proof-reader at a printing press.It may seem difficult to decipher this film at first, because the viewer will likely see no connection or storyline whatsoever in the events from the film.
Tarkovsky's one of a kind stream of consciousness picture, his unique masterclass in visual and poetic film-making, "The Mirror", is a mesmerizing and entrancing mixture of dreams, images and memories.
Tarkovsky himself described the art of directing as "sculpting in time" and realizes the idea in this masterpiece formally and content-wise: There's no story and clear cut scenario as such at first glance, the film's focus is constantly blurring, actors play multiple roles over various generations, and no morale is being preached and served to be taken home.
And yet it's all there if you not only want to look at things, but to see."Mirror" invites to be immersed in the pure beauty of the imagery, enhanced by expressive lyrics by Arseniy Tarkovsky and the subtle but effective soundtrack, all tied together to form an essay about life itself, to simply marvel at it, suffer and rejoice.
I was sitting there taking photos of the screen in my mind more than a hundred times, and when I left the cinema I said "beauty depends on how you look at the world".That this is how the only mirror works I recognized later, but I had seen this, a great gift to my life.
P.S. Just saw "The Wild Strawberries" by Bergman for the first time- beautiful black and white cinematography: definitely Bergman started "the wind of/and the childhood memories and eternal questions" first-in 1957;but even if Tarkovsky has seen it and borrowed Bergman's ideas, he had masterfully enriched and built upon them and became an "original" of the stunning visual beauty and a vulnerable humanity himself as he generously passed it on to us..
The pictures we see and associate cannot be explained, there is no symbolism for us to solve; the viewer just has to look at the film and read it with his/her heart.Andrei Tarkovsky said that the shock the divorce of his parents occurred was one of his inspirations for The Mirror.
Still,this one didn't satisfy me.OK,it has got some fine cinematic touches to it and,it has to be said,the film is quite unique since Tarkovski's own father and mother have important parts in the movie (the father as narrator of his own poems!
Another of Tarkovskiy's tics here sees him place a person, whom does not speak, in a scene by themselves before having all forms of dialogue put across via the voice of somebody not even there; an aggravating idea that would be more bothersome had it not been for the instances in which Tarkovskiy inserts war newsreel footage amidst his own, a troublesome happening seeing him attempt to feed off of whatever emotional response audiences may have out of it: the moment the man holds up both hands, realises the hole he's dug his way into and observes his imagery but this point does not stir anything.
This can, of course, come in the form of a thrilling action movie with scenes and dialog that stick with us long after we see them, and in its purest form, it can come as an expression of the inner workings of someone's mind.The Mirror, the fourth feature film of the Russian master auteur Andrei Tarkovsky, is a semi-autobiographical film presented as the memories and dreams of Aleksei, a dying poet.
The unconventional, stream-of- consciousness structure of the film presents these scenes as one might recall them in real life, connected by moods and moments that prompt recollection of others.Many of his earliest memories have little bits of dialog, giving a general sense of what is happening since the specifics have been long forgotten; memories of his adult life with his son and ex-wife contain more complete conversations.At several parts in the film, Aleksei's memories are also paralleled by reflections on Russian history and society, as we are shown footage of soldiers in World War II and hear an excerpt from a letter written by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, among other moments.
The camera moves deliberately through all these scenes as an observer; the long takes, as well as the movie's manipulation of time and sound, are key to accomplishing the intended effect.Tarkovsky himself maintained that he structured The Mirror as one would a piece of music, focusing on the material's form rather than on its logic.
Most of the time this did not happen due to the story itself being extremely serene, but for example some of the office scenes left me feeling quite strange in a bad way, as if I wished they weren't there.I loved how we almost never saw the man that Marusya was talking to, it gave her a phantom like character.
I didn't feel I was watching an actual movie; maybe I somehow managed to penetrate the mind of a person (from the past apparently) and experience his memories, dreams and thoughts by projecting them on screen.
In life we play a part; with movies we are only spectators.Last week I re-watched Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror for the third time (once in 1999, once in 2005, and now in 2012).
Out comes his semi autobiographical work which blends times and dreams to create a film filled with moments as one man looks back on his life with regret and almost always with his mother in mind.
If you are the type of person that feels spiritual or meditative at times, or loves to just look at art or watch nature (or people), then the Mirror will be an excellent choice for you..
It is in Andrei Tarkovsky's direction that the film excels, featuring impressive camera work, and impressionist storytelling, The Mirror is one of the few true examples of pure artistic vision in cinema.
Few films combine themes of war, of social decimation, of familial crises, of the memories of things and objects (i.e. art book), and mortality like the Mirror, so even when it seems to distance the viewer with its approach to revealing it's not something to discard very easily on the whole.I'd be careful who I'd recommend it to- it's the kind of film that would draw enough comments going either way (love or totally hate or confused by) as to be close to polarizing- but for those who want to take a chance, it's one of the director's best, a unique triumph of personal film-making.
If you were to list the top Russian directors of all time, Tarkovsky would be right near the top, perhaps only beaten by Eisenstein.He has a science fiction and fantasy way to look at the world, and even in more realistic films like this one, that sense of wonder comes through.
Mirror looks amazing, which is not surprising as Tarkovsky's films are some of the most visually beautiful I've seen, the cinematography was so dream-like that it's enough to leave one in a trance of wonder.
Each scene encapsulates the essence of story, transcending the need for developed character and reason.The finest part of The Mirror is the use of natural visuals, as well as the easier pace this film has to Tarkovsky's other films.
Much of Tarkovsky's genius is in his ability to create a world in every shot: his signature long takes capture the ontology of image and duration in his subjects, while his offscreen world is always living and present--this, especially as combined with his metaphysical dream/memory content, speaks to the very nature of what makes film unique and exciting to me.
The Mirror is a beautiful work of film, and once you've seen and loved Solaris and Stalker, it's essential viewing for any budding Tarkovskiphiles like myself..
Andrei Tarkovsky's MIRROR has to be the most personal film I have ever seen.
It also switches between 3 different generations of war.Just like films such as Disney's "Fantasia" and Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" seem to have images transforming into music, this movie's images seem to transform themselves into poetry.'The Mirror' (or, in Russian, 'Zerkalo') even makes use of scenes in black and white colored in a sepia tone, like in 'The Wizard of Oz' and the later 'Bröderna Lejonhjärta'.
While there were some unforgettable scenes ( or, more like images ), a movie is never complete without characters or storytelling, which leaves my verdict about The Mirror (1975) very mixed..
And with a brilliant touch the poems incorporated with several scenes are in fact written and read by the director's father Arseny Tarkovsky (It is important to note here that his second wife as well as his real mother appear in the movie).The highly unconventional film follows a nonlinear narrative..
So, a "moment" that is past, it will time wise continue to be "in the present", indeed still and in the future.Another feature of the Mirror is that the frames are widely used in other films of directors after Tarkovsky.