Zerkalo (1975)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 108 minuten
Alternative titles: The Mirror / De Spiegel / Зеркало
Country:
Soviet Union
Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky
Stars: Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev and Larisa Tarkovskaya
IMDb score:
7,9 (57.199)
Releasedate: 7 March 1975
Zerkalo plot
A dying man reflects on his life: his childhood during the Second World War, his increasing independence during his adolescence, and later a painful separation in his family. He also thinks back to the changes in his environment during his life.
Actors and actresses
Natalya / Maroussia - the Mother
Ignat / Alexei - 12 Years Old
Nadezha - Mother of 12-Year-Old Alexei
Lisa
Forensic Doctor
Printery Director
Nanny / Neighbour / Strange Woman at Tea Table
Rifle Shooting Instructor
The Father
Aleksei - 5 Years Old
Reviews & comments
Onderhond
-
- 87623 messages
- 12891 votes
5 years later, finally took the last 60 minutes only once.
In the end, a few scenes stand out visually. The aforementioned scene with all the water and the plaster falling from the ceiling. But also at the end some nice shots, the highlight are the fluttering curtains in beautiful, contrasting black and white.
Beyond that, unfortunately, it remains a visual void for me. I find the camera work, composition and use of color to be substandard, the stylization (as far as it was still there) doesn't do anything for me. Also makes the film visually inconsistent as Tarkovsky uses quite a few techniques within one film.
Other than that, this movie doesn't do anything for me. The base is easy to remove, although I can't place the archive images well and I therefore find them fairly redundant. The mirror idea reappears on several levels (literally in the picture, wife/mother, as a film by Tarkovsky) but at no time, in any variant, does not captivate me.
For some people this is deeply philosophical, I just don't find anything here that can interest me even the slightest bit. Apart from some nice visual moments.
For me, Zerkalo remains above all audiovisual poetry that is a hundred times too classical to please me further. The poems, Bach, Vermeers ... I shuffle into the Museum of Modern Art.
1.0*
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico
-
- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
Andrei Tarkovsky does not make simple films. My third in the meantime and Andrey Rublev is definitely still on my wish list. I also had to struggle through this Zerkalo. I like a movie challenge, but here I sometimes missed where the movie was going. It is a personal work by Tarkovsky, but lacks a clear plot and elaborate characters, perhaps deliberately.
In any case, some beautiful images and shots such as the burning barn, the reflection of the young lady as an old woman, etc ... I also noticed the movie poster of Andrey Rublev in the house at the beginning of the film, hehe.
It turned out to be a film full of Tarkovsky's memories, it turns out, seasoned with poetic wording and philosophical monologues. Nice technically and in terms of installation. Think for example of the dreamy scene at the beginning of the film with the walking man and the rising wind that blows through the grass. Some bizarre scenes too, awkward and artful at the same time. But all in all, it didn't loosen up enough for me. A film to look back on and to remember the beautiful scenes, but as a film itself as a whole, no, not that.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Roger Thornhill
-
- 6074 messages
- 2478 votes
Nowadays there is an abundance of information available with the internet, bonus features on DVDs (though not on my issue) and books by and about Tarkovsky, but when I first saw this film in an art house in the early 80s (and then the title not as Zerkalo but still as Serkalo), neither before nor afterwards was there any external source to interpret this film. Yet I was immediately captivated by the unimaginably beautiful images (the ceiling through which the water comes down in tubs, the woman washing her hair in slow motion, the long-duration close-ups, the flash of a chicken passing through a window breaks, the woman floating above the bed), the careful soundtrack (the rustle of the wind in the tall grass, the crunch of fresh snow under boots) and the beautiful Margarita Terechova. Those images in particular made a deep impression: it seemed as if Tarkovsky was shaping a subconscious world by showing images and symbols that may have no rational coherence, but which, because they had sprung from one (his) brain (mind, heart) nevertheless all had a unique validity and therefore coherence. Years later I read that it would be a man who looks back on his life from his deathbed, and although I do find some "evidence" for that at the end of the film, the film remains for me, even without that plot-wise explanation. dreamlike experience that lets me skim past someone else's (Tarkovsky's) subconscious. That is always more than enough for this filmmaker.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Trending Movies
Corporate & Media
Realtimes Network
Innovatieweg 20C
7007 CD, Doetinchem, Netherlands
+31(315)-764002
