Well, where to start with the 1975 film Mirror directed by Andrei Tarkov. This movie is certainly different, and if you wish to ask me what it is about I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea. It was a very new type of movie experience for me. There was no storyline I could follow and it seemed to have flash forwards, and flash backs, however I was not able to distinguish between the two. Furthermore the film made the viewer pay attention to every word spoken. If you missed a word I was afraid I would be more lost than I already was. Although I was confused for the greater part of the movie, I really enjoyed all the poetry it contained. It was very tasteful and left an impact although I could not fit it in with the movie itself.
Because I felt the movie was very confusing, I chose to take notes on anything that really spoke to me. The first thing I noticed was the fact that the movie started in black and white and switched to color- this happened throughout the film. I may have been wrong but whenever the color switched I was under the impression that we had done a flash back or flash forward. I also noticed that this film had an infatuation with wind and water. One particular scene actually scared me- well while we're on the topic of scared, two scenes actually left an impression. The first was a scene in which the woman dunks her head in a tub of water. When she lifts her head with her hair in front of her face, it reminded me of a horror movie like the little girl in the movie The Ring. The other was a scene in which the woman chops off the chickens head and looks into the camera as if she is looking into your soul. It seemed very creepy and certainly was one of the scenes I'll remember from this film. I also noticed that we never see Ignats father in his adult form. Again I am very unsure about this movie but as far as I understood, some of the flashbacks were of Ignats father as a child. One of my notes was that I was actually kind of confused at who the main character was- and what their names even were. The woman in the water was the main character at times, but then I felt it was the child, who I thought was Ignat the whole film until he said his name was Alyosha.
Overall, a completely new cinematic experience for me. This was by far the hardest movie I have ever tried to make sense of. I found my self constantly trying to make connections to some of the images shown and the storyline that was presented. It wasn't my favorite movie, but in hines-sight it was fun to have this struggle to make sense of the movie.
Good first viewing, Tyler--your experience trying to make sense of this film for the first time is very similar to mine (which was about ten years ago), only you did a better job drawing some of the connections. We'll talk some more about the character identifications and dual roles (something I didn't pick up on at all the first time I watched it) tomorrow--but Tarkovsky would have been pleased I think to note the attention you paid to the elements (water and wind, along of course with fire and earth)--things that are very important to him.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you all the way on the creepiness of the dream, with her hair sticking up and covering her face like that. No question that Tarkovsky could have probably made a pretty good horror flick if he had chosen.
(I should note also that Tarkovsky is the director of the original "Solaris"--which you may perhaps be familiar with from the tribute version made by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney?).
And yes, the expression she makes after chopping off the rooster's head is nothing short of soul-piercing...
I felt the poetry helped to connect to what was going onscreen and how the characters were feeling at that point in time.
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