lost and found cinema

Zerkalo The Mirror, 1975 (Soviet Union) 106min

Director and Writer: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cinematographor: Georgi Rerberg
Cast: Margarita Terekhova … Mother / Natalya

心不在焉有點勉強地看完, 第一次看塔可夫斯基就看 “鏡子", 不是對其100% 詩意 100% 夢境般沒有邏輯的影像嚇到, 就是被來回於黑白, 彩色, 過去, 現在, 新聞片段的剪接, 流轉於母親, 家鄉, 戰爭等等的童年回憶感動到, 雖然看得心不在焉, 但是那些來回於過去與現在的影像實在是太迷人, 太不真實, 太難忘, 塔可夫斯基絕對是獨一無二我會喜歡的大師之一.

《鏡子》的影像分析, Strictly film school

Mirror is Andrei Tarkovsky’s visually transcendent, artistically revelatory autobiographical film on lost innocence and emotional abandonment. Presented as a languidly paced, achronological cinematic montage of modern day life, personal memories, historical news footage, and dreams, Mirror is an introspective journey through the course of human existence, hope and despair, success and frailty. Mirror is a reflection of Tarkovsky’s haunted soul: his search for spirituality, connection, Truth – exposed through indelible images that inevitably define our own imperfect lives, however trivial or mundane.

Andrei Tarkovsky deliberately obscures time by using the same actors to portray the two phases of the narrator’s life: the fatherless boy attempting to reach out to his distracted mother, and the distant father unable to relate to his self-absorbed son. Anachronistic newsreels of world events are interspersed to provide environmental reference and tonal shift. The structure of the film constantly evolves through the use of flashbacks and flash forwards, defined through chromatic shifts. This results in a film that is thematically cyclical, reflecting the narrator’s pattern of alienation and emotional isolation.

Solyaris Solaris, 1972 (Soviet Union) 165min

Writers: Stanislaw Lem (novel)
Fridrikh Gorenshtein, Andrei Tarkovsky (screenplay)
Cinematographor: Vadim Yusov
Cast: Natalya Bondarchuk … Hari
Donatas Banionis … Kris Kelvin
Jüri Järvet … Dr. Snaut

今年居然看了 2001 A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner 和 Solaris 這三部科幻經典, 2001 驚為天人, Blade 層次差了一截, Solaris 比我預期的 “有劇情有對白", 女主角是讓人眼睛移不開的類型, 對人類存在的省思更是前無古人後無來者. 這兩部電影被我這樣隨便看完, 實在是糟蹋我期待已久的塔可夫斯基呀.

review: 雜談小說與美俄電影, Roger Ebert, senses of cinema

Both films involve human space journeys and encounters with a transforming alien intelligence, which creates places (“2001″) or people (“Solaris") from clues apparently obtained by reading minds. But Kubrick’s film is outward, charting man’s next step in the universe, while Tarkovsky’s is inward, asking about the nature and reality of the human personality.

This Guest is not simply a physical manifestation, however. She has intelligence, self-consciousness, memory, and lack of memories…. When we love someone, who do we love? That person, or our idea of that person? Some years before virtual reality became a byword, Tarkovsky was exploring its implications.