Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1973, Russia, 189 mins, subtitles
Cast:
Anatoli Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko Daniil, Nikolai Sergeyev, Irma Raush, Nikolai Burlyayev, Yuri Nazarov, Yuri Nikulin, Rolan Bykov, Mikhail Kononov, Stepan Krylov, Bolot Bejshenaliyev
Review by Angus Macdonald
Considered by many to be legendary Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece, Andrei Rublev tells the story of the celebrated 15th century monk and icon painter as he struggles with the temptations, obstacles and brutality that surround him, and threaten his spiritual and artistic faith. Other writers have commented on the film as being a metaphor for Tarkovsky's own beliefs on the nature of spirituality and art, and a personal contemplation on the cruel struggles underlying any truthful and uncompromised creative endeavour. "The pressures Rublev is subject to are not exceptional. Every artist is always under pressure. But then no artist works in ideal conditions because if he did there would no need for him."
Told in eight chapters, each depicting a fictional event in the artists life between 1400 and 1423, the film follows Rublev (wonderfully played by Solonitsyn) as he leaves his monastery to paint with the famous Theophanes the Greek (Sergeyev). Each episode illustrates the cause of Rublev's loss and eventual regaining of his faith. From the poverty and despair he witnesses on his travels, to the jealousy his talent and reputation cause amongst his fellow monks. Rublev struggles with the sexual temptations he faces when inadvertently falling upon a witches Sabbath, and the horror and violence of the Tartar raids, in which he is forced to kill someone, provoke him to take up a vow of silence and artistic chastity ("I have nothing more to say to men").
In perhaps the most celebrated (and most often-cited) chapter, a bell-maker's son, Boriska (Burlyayev), assigns himself the job of casting a giant bell for the Grand Prince (Nazarov), claiming that his father passed on the great secret of bell-casting on his death bed. As the young boy struggles with the physical labour, exhaustion, and constant arguments with authority, it is all too clear that his confidence is nothing more than pretence. After successfully casting and lifting the bell into place, the scene in which they test the bell in front of the Grand Prince, his royal friends, and the entire court, is incredibly tense and suspenseful. Boriska, exhausted and weeping, confesses to Rublev that his father had not passed on his secret. The boy's self-belief, courage, and obstinacy repair Rublev's faith, and ending his vow of silence, Rublev comforts him and tells him that they will travel to other cathedrals to cast bells and paint icons together.
Andrei Rublev is a stunning and epic film. From the opening prologue, in which a man escapes a marauding crowd by flying from a clock tower in a makeshift balloon, to the final sequence when the screen bursts from black and white into a celebration of colour as we are finally shown examples of Rublev's actual paintings. This film is filled with some of the most haunting and beautiful images seen on screen - a horse tumbling in the grass in slow motion, paint slowly spreading across a stream as an artist's assistant is murdered, a snow shower in the middle of a cathedral ("there is nothing more terrifying than snow in a temple").
In this newly restored print from Mosfilm, Tarkovsky's beautiful black and white visuals sparkle and shine crisply from the screen. From the expansive landscapes, the intense close-ups of faces, and the minute details in nature, Vadim Yusov's continually roaming and searching cinematography is at times nothing short of breath taking. It is easy to see how inspirational Tarkovsky has been, and it is possible to look at certain scenes and shots to identify the influence on a number of contemporary filmmakers. The witches Sabbath scene alone recalls the work of directors such as Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God , Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now , and Roland Joffe's The Mission . The addition of the extra nine minutes of footage does not particularly enhance or add to the overall film (in fact, they are barely noticeable). It does provide, however, the comfortable feeling that the viewer is eventually getting closer to the completed work Tarkovsky had originally intended.
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