Mirror

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The Mirror (1975) aka Zerkalo 720p BluRay.x265 HEVC SUJAIDR

Andre Tarkovsky's The Mirror is at once a personal recollection of a lifetime of sorrows and a remembrance of wartime emotions perhaps long forgotten by most. The filmmaker's autobiographical cinematic expedition is without form, which is both captivating and frustrating. Pleasing large audiences with a non-linear narrative is a more taunting task in the current day than it was in 1975 when the film was first released. The hyperactive visual style of most films aims to satisfy increasingly short attention spans; narratives are given predictable deliverances and little is left to the imagination. None of these qualities speak on behalf of contemporary films in comparison to abstract, subjective works however it is apparent that such films are less likely to 'succeed' today. Tarkovsky's film is a stream of consciousness display of memories ranging from moments in Russian history to the most precise personal anecdotes. Some are conveyed through archival footage shot during World War II while others are simply retold as they are remembered; others still are so highly subjective that their context can only be assumed. The viewer must infer so much that any hope of interpreting a single strand of the film's interwoven story is next to impossible. The film's framework is structured around the divorce of a young boy's parents, a subplot that invokes a sense of emptiness and lost direction; these emotions are rampant in each of the film's stories within a story and yet the connection is often lost between narratives. Since the same actors carry over into various other microcosms of the film is it sometimes difficult to forge a division between numerous story lines. Regardless, whether or not their meaning is clear, the images on screen are marked by a sense of haunting beauty that evokes within the viewer an almost visceral reaction. One scene lingers long after the film ends for it leaves a truly ghostly chill in its wake. As the boy is being carted from one parent to the other he finds himself alone in an unfamiliar apartment. He is told to await his father's return from work and yet when he enters a sparse room he finds a woman sitting at a desk. She asks the boy to answer the door and when he returns she is gone. At first the sequence of events appears to be simple transition between two memories happening in the same place. But instead of switching over to a new narrative, the scene takes a haunting turn: on the glass table where the woman sipped her tea remains a ring of condensation in the shape and size of her cup. As the boy approaches the table, seemingly aware of the sudden change, the ring of steam slowly evaporates, indicating that what had once existed is now gone. This image is reminiscent of the film's thematic undertone since it is can be read as a metaphor for memories: something that once was real that leaves only an imprint of itself before slowly fading out of sight and eventually mind. While this moment is effectively eerie it sets a standard that the rest of the film fails to live up to in its disoriented retelling of memories too subjective to be of much importance to anyone beside the filmmaker himself.

Has there ever been a more visually beautiful film than this one? That's a rhetorical question... one that only viewing it can answer. To try to follow it as an ordinary narrative is to lose its poetic ambience...I let it wash over me like glorious music. We are so accustomed to "and then...and then" that our minds can follow as logic, that we tend to dismiss the affect that the visual image itself can have on our minds, hearts and souls. Tarkovsky is a poet...and for me this is his richest, most satisfying film of all. 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. Zerkalo is haunting and uplifting even as we know the "hero" is dying. Death, after all, is an intrinsic part of life.

THE MIRROR is another art-house drama by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. I'm no fan of this guy, so I'll keep my thoughts brief. In terms of visuals, this film is very good, well thought out, with carefully constructed compositions and the like. Tarkovsky would make a good painter and his style reminded me a little of Herzog's HEART OF GLASS. As for the rest, it's typically long-winded, personal, boring, and familiar from the rest of his work. The characters are dull and the plot events strive for meaning but feel quite obtuse. The only part of this I found interesting from a historical perspective is the segment detailing Communist China.

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. It's only after repeated viewings and the realisation of what it actually was that Tarkovsky tried to achieve that it dawns that this is more than just a bunch of random scenes, but a timeless and highly important masterpiece which defies explanation. But I'll try anyway. I personally hold Tarkovsky in very high esteem. There are many directors I would regard as good or very good (for instance Kubrick, Kieslowski, Ozu, or Miyazaki), but there are only two directors I regard as absolute geniuses: Akira Kurosawa and, yep, Andrei Tarkovsky. 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. Mirror is further proof that Tarkovsky's body of work (which is limited in quantity - a mere eight films - but rich in scope) establishes that the Hollywood mode of narrative is not the only way in which film can create an emotional response from an audience. 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. However, Mirror is deliberately structured in such a way that it can, and will, be interpreted differently by different people depending on how they inscribe their own personal thoughts and feelings into the narrative. 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. In the case of Mirror, we, the audience, dictate the emotional response created by the images on screen and, that, ultimately is that makes it such a wonderful work and a true rarity. This is possibly another way the title of the film can be interpreted, in that it illustrates a wholly reflective style of cinema. Those not accustomed to a slightly more disjunctive cinematic style are likely to dismiss Mirror as boring or dull because it may not necessarily correspond to their expectations of film. However, it is still something I would regard as required viewing for everyone since it shows that cinema can be beautiful without necessarily following the rules Hollywood has imposed on the rest of the film making community, and that ultimately rules are there to be broken. A masterpiece, no less.

I just finished watching it. It's been several years since I saw it last time. I worried that I may not like it as much as I used to... I should not have worried - I love it even more now if that is at all possible. 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. I remember how my friends were passionately discussing it. One girl was complaining that she did not understand anything; the movie was confusing for her, dark, disturbing, the children characters - sad, pale, poorly dressed. I remember her asking, "Why did they show a boy in the opening scene that had an awful stutter, and they never showed that boy again? What did it mean when the dying man in bed was setting a bird free? How did he get the bird on the first place?" Another friend of mine, a guy, tried to explain the things to her. 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. I only listened to their argument and did not participate because I had not seen the film yet. When it finally happened, Andrei Arsenievich Tarkovsky was presented at the screening and he talked to the audience before the show. I remember him repeating over and over that there were no tricks, no puzzles, and no tongue-in-cheeks in the film; that every symbol, image, dialog, and sound was there because they belonged there. He asked us if we had questions. Someone from the audience suggested that we saw the film first, and then, asked questions. Tarkovsky replied that from his experience, not many viewers would sit through the film and who ever would, usually leave in silence, not asking anything. And then he told us a story. After Zerkalo was completed, it was first shown to the group of the famous critics. After watching it, critics started to argue about it, trying to find the hidden meaning and make sense of what they just saw. It went on and on until the cleaning lady who came to the screening room and had been waiting for the end of discussion to do her job, asked them for how long they would stay? Someone said to her that they were discussing a very complicated film, and they needed time to understand it. Cleaning lady asked, "What is that you do not understand in this film? I saw it also, and I understood everything." Critics were silenced for a moment, and then, one of them asked the woman to share her thoughts on Zerkalo. She answered, "It is about a man who had caused too much pain to the ones whom he loved and who loved him. Now he is dying and he is trying to ask them for forgiveness but he does not know how." After the pause Tarkovsky said that he had nothing else to add about his film to what the cleaning lady had to say. I never understood complains that Zerkalo is a very confusing, difficult, and dark film. No, it is clear and deep as a mirror. Tarkovsky said so himself, and I believe him. Every time you look at the mirror, it will show you new depth and reflections. Past, presence, future, memory, love, guilt, forgiveness, beauty, sadness, nostalgia, and sacrifice - the mirror reflects it all -just watch closely. This is the film about his family, his country, and his times. Childhood memory and the memory of the past generations glued together. The film is a look back in time and sad realization that children reflect destiny of fathers, as in a mirror. Destinies reflected one in another. Zerkalo is not just good cinema, it is pure cinema. Like architecture is music in stone, Zerkalo is poetry on screen.

Spoilers herein. Many films allow one immediate response; you know while watching how effective it is and at the end are geared for talking or writing about what you have just seen. Others, you need to spend time with. This -- I am guessing here -- is because the truly great so lead our imagination that we need to heal or grow after the experience and only then assess what has happened. Surely when you are in this film, you know something special is going on: there are some true transcendences of the eye; very dimensional, surprising. Just as you have established the field of vision and registered the one thing you expect to see, the camera moves in an unexpected manner to reveal either a completely extra or contradictory reality. Those moments thrill, but confuse at the same time because in lesser hands, this would be an excuse for noodling about with the 'story' in a superficially artsy-fartsy manner. Only after some time can you evaluate how effectively this might have slipped between the sheets of your minds. It is a matter of some interest to me how this happens when it does. Is it a matter of the artist knowing us better than we do ourselves and slipping into our dreams unawares? Or is a matter of creating an attractive castle that we are drawn to and inhabit? Generally, when an artist is called 'personal,' it is thought to be the latter. But in this case, I think most of what he has done is find that universal manner of overlapping and merging that underlies the visual memory of us all. What confuses is the Soviet environment: the intensely uncoordinated industrial environment and the once fine but now dilapidated urban residences. They transport us to a different place: the unfamiliar described in a familiar way. Surely this is not what he intended: he didn't make this for a comfortable American/European. And if not made just for himself it was for people who shared the same world. So at least as far as the content, we are attracted to an unfamiliar castle. But so far as the 'personal' form, I think he has found something strangely cosmic. This may be the best film (with Rublev) of one of the three most important filmmakers in history. Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 4: Every visually literate person should experience this.

We are talking visual poetry here. For almost the entire film, every square inch of screen is minutely painted. Ordinary criticism doesn't apply, there is no comparison between this and any other film. So many scenes have you holding your breath in awe. The smallest movement of light is choreographed precisely. A shadow across someone's face, the wind in the trees - these are not simply images of those things, but the ungraspable nature of life, regret, beauty, memory. 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. He cannot put a foot wrong. Discontinuity in the narrative give the appearance of complexity, but Tarkovksy would insist that the basic thrust of the narrative is simple. The film is immensely personal, and the disconnections only serve to involve the viewer more – we are allowed to fill in the gaps ourselves. To appreciate all this you need an essential sympathy for nostalgia and memories, for the passing of life, and for regret. You need an appreciation of a silent room and what it previously held, and of nature. You will need a sense of living in a turbulent and dangerous world, where all beauty is transient and sad. You will need to understand how small moments in life can become the most precious. The film is tragic because, like memories, it lingers. It shows us details beneath the surface and how they can affect us. It shows life in the context of death, nature, the times and places we have passed through. The camera ponders and paints all this in beautiful detail. Of course, real life is never so rich nor so intense - only momentarily so. 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. There is no more than this.

If I watched the movie in its original version I wouldn't have understood less, could have enjoyed the pictures and worked out my own story. I found it so incredibly boring, that I got me a beer and watched directly afterwards Sergio Leone's great C'era una volta il West (had to see a real movie) - now my back is hurting because of the most uncomfortable seats in our cinema.