Build a movie plot around this: What is the Pagan Feast? Midsummer festival
Answer:
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...