Mirror
1974
With THE MIRROR, legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky crafts perhaps his most profound and compelling film. What started off for Tarkovsky as a planned series of interviews with his own mother evolved into a lyrical and complex circular meditation on love, loyalty, memory, and history. Time shifts and generations merge .. Read more
| Starring | Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Larisa Tarkovskaya |
|---|---|
| Director | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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Mirror
With THE MIRROR, legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky crafts perhaps his most profound and compelling film. What started off for Tarkovsky as a planned series of interviews with his own mother evolved into a lyrical and complex circular meditation on love, loyalty, memory, and history. Time shifts and generations merge as a single extraordinary actress (Margarita Terekhova) plays the narrator's former wife as well as his mother. Tarkovsky's memories as well as those of his mother are intermingled as a dark, sumptuous, and dreamlike pre-World War II Russia is evoked, accompanied throughout by the voice of Tarkovsky's father reading his own elegiac poetry. The spectacle of nature and its ubiquitous and ever-shifting presence is captured by Tarkovsky's camera as if by magic--the family cabin nestled deep in the verdant woods, a barn on fire in the middle of a gentle rainstorm, a gigantic wind enveloping a man as he walks through a wheat field--all creating indelible images with deep if mysterious emotional resonance. As the timeline shifts between the narrator's generation and his mother's, newsreel footage of Russian wars, triumphs, and disasters are juxtaposed with imagined scenes from the past, present, and future, crafting a silently lucid cinematic panopticon of memory, history, and nature.
| Starring | Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Larisa Tarkovskaya |
|---|---|
| Director | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| Studio | ARTIFICIAL EYE |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 42 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | Russian |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 29 Jul 2002 Production year: 1974 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (2)
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Cinema doesn't get much more personal than this. Casting his mother as the old woman and using his famous father, Arseni Tarkovsky's poetry on the soundtrack, director Andrei Tarkovsky draws on childhood memories, artistic fantasies and actual events to explore the ways in which the history of his country impinged on the lives of three generations of his family. It's a bewildering blend of documentary footage and stylised imagery, that can only be described as cinematic poetry. Some of the references are decidedly obscure and it takes considerable concentration to keep in step. An awesome achievement, nevertheless.
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"...[A] radiant, sublime dream of a film....THE MIRROR can be regarded as the work of a man who has found his voice and learned to express himself in his own powerful way..."
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Most helpful member's review
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26 out of 27 people found this review helpful
Tarkovsky - wow.
I've seen all of Tarkovsky's films. In particular, the string of 4 films he made (Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, Stalker) in a row are an absolutely staggering achievement. If you have a short attention span, and are offended by movies that ask you to participate and think, then don't even bother.
Otherwise, I can't think of a better representative to make the case for cinema as art. -
Most recent members' review
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Astounding
I am not in the least qualified to review this amazing film. It took me by storm and perhaps I will need to watch it again. It could also be considered an indulgence to have the opportunity to watch something so great. It requires hard work but not in the same way that a book does. This is visually quite surreal but with emphasis on the real. Somehow, yes.
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- zimbaboy from Cainscross
- Posted 07 Jul 2008 18:45
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