The Mirror - Zerkalo - (1975) - Movie Review

It’s much easier to respect Andrei Tarkovsky than it is to like him. My first introduction to his filmography was Stalker, a vaguely Soviet-period sci-fi philosophical road movie about three men and their journey into a mystical, Area 51-esque underworld called The Zone. The Mirror, on the other hand, mostly keeps its feet firmly on the ground. A semi-autobiographical story, it has a strong sense of historical place (Soviet Russia in the 40’s, 60’s and 70’s).  It feels like the more accessible of the two films, despite its complex, abstract nature, and it is a strange but chillingly beautiful movie.

The friend with whom I saw the film said it came into being because Tarkovsky was trying to exorcise his recurring dreams (he was successful.) It’s true, the story feels like a vast, puzzling experience of catharsis, though relief is mingled with the bittersweet dissatisfaction of loss.

The main character is Alexei “Alyosha”, a thinly veiled representation of Tarkovsky himself. Many of Alexei’s problems stem from his troubled past, and he (or the camera, at least) goes back to several periods in his life, attempting to untangle memory from truth. Tarkovsky’s tracking shots, moving slowly through the doors of a house, have an entrancing quality, drawing us into a world which feels four-dimensional, beckoning us inside a fully-realized, tangible space.

Minireview: Kin-Dza-Dza! (1986)

Oddball Russian sci-fi that somehow, as it drags along, drags one along with it. While I have a feeling I missed a lot of jokes by being American, it still has internationally funny moments, and as an effort of world-building it's terrific, being a sort of steampunk Tatooine-esque dystopian wasteland. The second half incorporates unexpected moral choices that add depth to what would otherwise be merely a weird, minimalist social satire.

And for what it's worth, Stanislav Lyubshin's Uncle Vova is the Russian Harrison Ford. The guy is coolness personified. To extend the comparisons, Gedevan would be a weird Shia LaBeouf, and the alien musicians would be two long-lost members of a Monty Python-Coen Brothers mash-up.

Koo!



4/5 stars.

Hannah Long