Andrei Rublev Reviews

Tarkovsky masterpiece

A friend confessed to us that she saw this in the cinema and was so bored she walked out. It's hard to believe she was watching the same film. OK, the film is slow and episodic but it totally immerses you in 15th Century Russia, almost every stunning shot is like a painting (probably by Bruegel) and the ending may well move you to tears. If you have even a passing interest in European art cinema then you should see it.

Warning: the film is split between two disks, with extras on both DVDs, so you will need to rent them in sequence to see whole thing.

The rest of Rublev

This is not a bonus disc, but the last hour and a half of the movie, so you need to rent both at the same time to see the whole thing.

Russian Classic

This film is quite simply, superb. It's quite heavy going in parts, as it's a proper epic, but it's visually stunning. The eponymous hero is an icon painter in 13th Century (I think) Russia, and the film follows some of the episodes in his life. Rublev is played as a Christ-like figure, which is pretty typically Russian: but I don't think I'm really qualified to expound on the allegorical interpretation of the film. But whether I understood it entirely or not, the scale, beauty and grandeur of the film took my breath away.

Difficult but immensely rewarding

I have to admit that around halfway through Tarkovsky's three hour epic about the eponymous medieval Russian painter, I was strongly tempted to give in. A vague sense that I should have an intimate knowledge of Russian art history was coupled with some confusion about exactly what the characters were doing, and the pace seemed to be getting more turgid by the minute.

However, I carried on, and into the second disc (you have to rent both for the whole film, incidentally), hoping that something would pull these disjointed strands together. What a reward for the patience! It is very hard to describe the effect that the film has at its conclusion, suffice to say that the overlying meaning of the film becomes evident, not in a twist revealing finale, but in a steady conclusion of all the slow burning themes within. I had previously been rather sceptical about Tarkovsky, after seeing 'Stalker' and being rather unimpressed by its overstatement and unnecessary length. Rublev, however, is a gobsmacking way of approaching the biopic, in a way never seen before, at once fresh and original, with no recourse to cinematic cliche.

Don't give up - watch to the end!!

[Highly rated reviewer]

One of the world's great masterpieces

A man clings to a church tower and, while below him the Tartar hordes attack the remaining handful of peasants, he soars skywards on his primitive hot air balloon, and then, soon afterwards, plunges back to earth. As an opening for a film, this is just about unbeatable, its epic quality and symbolism providing the perfect introduction to Tarkovsky's largely fictionalised series of episodes in the life of Russia's greatest icon painter. Learning acceptance of others and of the nature of his talent and, climactically, of the desperate need for faith in a vicious world, he transcends his time as surely as Tarkovsky will. Each part is complete in itself, but, put together, they form the most fantastic portrait of an artist we are ever likely to see.

One word of warning, though. My discs had a French dubbed version as the default setting. You need to go into the 'Dubbing' menu and then the 'Subtitles' menu to get a version without voiceover and with English subtitles.

Excellent

This is a great work of art and should be seen. However, note that this particular DVD is a slightly cut-down version. E.g., the notorious burning cow and stabbed horse shots aren't in it. As it happens I didn't particularly want to see a cow on fire or a horse being stabbed, and the fact that they were in it in the first place overshadowed the genius of the rest of the film in some quarters, but it makes me nervous wondering what else might have been cut. Just from reading about the film I suspect portions of Andrei's dialogues with Theophanes and Danila have been edited too. Tarkovsky was apparently quite happy with this version, and what I have seen here unquestionably constitutes a masterpiece; and for all I know this cut is better. But be aware that there is a longer version, I think available from Criterion.

Painting by Numerology

This is a film to be approached with caution. While many are happy to lie down and worship at the shrine of European art-cinema, Tarkovsky is not everyone's cup of tea. The two people who watched it with me were ready to tear their own heads off by the end of disc one.

I, however, was at times entranced by the sheer visual beauty of this film, and by its extraordinary evocation of medieval life. It was also very mysterious and strange, and its fragmentary narrative disoriented the viewer, giving the film a sense of having been made in the fifteenth century, if that were possible.

As another reviewer notes, the visual influence appears to be Brueghel, and some of the panoramicm sweeping shots of crowds are quite breathtaking.

Against all this, the film is painfully slow at times, has too much metaphysical dialogues about the meaning of Leviticus 5, verse 26, and ultimately fails to deliver the sort of mystical punch I suspect Tarkovsky was after at the end.

Best episodes for me were the Buffoon, the Raid and the Last Judgement.

"Wonderful & terrible"

This is not easy going. I would recommend you get hold of the script book (Faber) to fill in the difficult continuity. I first saw this over 25 years ago and it has remained with me ever since. Not my favorite Tarkovski, not indeed a film I can enjoy, but a film above all that I must come back to every few years to reassert the possibilities of film as art.

Like listening to Schoenberg, looking at Poussin or drinking a decent Barolo you need to have done your homework and pay close attention and the rewards will be there.

A masterpiece

There is probably no film that conjures up the atmosphere and character of life in the middle ages so impressively and convincingly. There is no particular plot-line, but it conveys a sequence of episodes in the life of an artist, and his struggles to decide whether to participate in life or simply to comment on it through his art.