Director Andrei Tarkovsky shows the beautiful icons created by this famous iconographer only at the end of this long, long film. He shows that they were not just painted by a contemplative monk in a peaceful monastery. They were painted in the midst of the bustling life and terrible cruelty of medieval Russia, a land of ignorant peasants, cruel princes and Tartars invading thrice a year.Part I (86 mins.)Chapter 1Hot-Air BalloonChapter 2The Buffoon, 1400 AD.The opening image is of three monks who set off for Moscow across a harvested field: Kirill, Andrei and Danila. They take shelter from a rainstorm in a barn/inn. There, a buffoon is entertaining peasants with a song mocking the local boyar (lord). Then, some soldiers come and arrest the buffoon.Chapter 3Theophanes the Greek, 1405 AD.This begins with the grisly scene of a man shouting as he is dragged to the wheel to be broken. The scene ends with the gory aftermath: the bloodied body lying on the wheel.An artistic discussion occurs between Theophanes the Greek and Father Kirill. Theophanes asks him to become his assistant. Kirill says he will, if the master will come to the monastery and ask for him personally, in front of all the monks. To his bitter disappointment, he sends someone else, to ask for Andrei instead. Andrei agrees to go, but Danila refuses, when Andrei asks him to accompany him.Andrei is devastated. The next morning, he goes to Danilas cell and confesses, We have shared the same cell for years. I cant paint without you. I look with your eyes; I listen with your ears. Danila replies with tears in his eyes, You silly man, go with my blessing! Andrei kneels and kisses Danila's hand.Meanwhile, Father Kirill leaves the monastery in disgust, past a huge wall of logs, shouting You brood of vipers! You have made his temple a den of thieves.Chapter 4The Passion according to Andrei, 1406 AD The chapter opens with Father Andrei walking through a forest with his apprentice, Foma. Andrei tells him, "I washed brushes for three years for Danila before he trusted me with an icon. And then only to clean it, not to create one". He and Foma meet Theophanes the Greek, who despairs of his countrymen:"The day of judgement is coming. We will all burn like candles!"Andrei replies, "I don't understand how you can paint, with such opinions. If I thought like this, I would have vowed silence and gone to live in a cave."Theophanes: "All is vanity! All is useless! Humanity has already committed all stupidities, and is starting to repeat them."Andrei replies with a meditation on the suffering of the Russian people, illustrated by the passion of Father Kirill.Chapter 5Pagan Feast, 1408 AD.This is a Midsummer festival, where the monks observe naked peasants running through the forest carrying flaming torches, or standing in the river, holding the torches high and paying homage to the image of their deity, floating downriver in a little boat.Chapter 6 Last Judgement, 1408 ADAndrei is unable to paint the Last Judgement on the whitewashed walls of a new church, because he doesnt want to scare the people.Part II (99 mins.)Chapter 1Raid on the city of Vladimir, 1408 AD.To revenge himself on his brother, the Grand Prince, the younger brother (the Little Prince) leads a band of Tartars into the city of Vladimir.They break down the door of the cathedral, where the people have taken refuge. They torture, murder and rape the people, and set fire to the building. The Tartars climb to the roof and plunder the gold leaf from the dome. The Little Prince looks on grimly. Only Andrei and a halfwit, dumb girl, Durochka, survive. Before the burned-out iconostasis, in the cathedral filled with corpses, with the ghost of Theophanes as his witness, he vows silence.Chapter 2The Silence, 1412 ADFamine ravages the countryside, and a haggard Father Kirill returns, begging to be taken back into the monastery.Chapter 3The Bell, 1423 ADA teenaged lad, Boris, tells some soldiers, who are looking for a bell-founder, "My father is dead of the plague, so are my mother and sister. But my father told me the secret of the bell before he died. I have the secret of bell bronze".He is taken to cast a new bell for the Grand Prince of Vladimir.Andrei is a silent observer of the trials of the bell casting. At one point, he is confronted by Father Kirill:"You know why I left the monastery? I envied your talent. Envy was eating out my soul. I left because of you. And look at you now! You are wasting your talent. It is a sin to waste your God-given talent!"After the first ringing of the bell, Boris, begins to weep, crying that his father did not give him the secret of the bell.Andrei comforts him, "Dont cry! You will go on to cast many bells, and I will go on to paint icons".At this point, the film suddenly switches to colour, and we are shown Rublev's icons in loving detail.
Output: Question: Who set off for Moscow?, Answer: Three monks