Tarkovsky's Italian film, Nostalghia
When I think of Andrey Tarkovsky's films (Stalker, The Mirror, The Sacrifice, et al) I see settings undergoing atmospheric changes, his camera lingering during long shots, showing the arrival of a front in the form of a sudden onrush of wind (The Mirror), or in Nostalghia (1983), mist covering a rolling Italian landscape. Such moments indicate Tarkovsky's patience at seeking and achieving visual effects of a natural character, the kind of thing manufactured by CGI in many movies nowadays. He showed in his career what could be done with what's there.
This penultimate film of his, shot in Italy three years before his death (he was only fifty-four then in 1986), has a simple story: a Russian author, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Jankovsky), goes to Italy with an Italian interpreter, Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), to do research for his biography of a Russian composer who had lived in Italy for a time. At a spa, Andrei meets the mentally ill Domenico (Erland Josephson, one of Ingmar Bergman's actors who also played the lead in Tarkovsky's last film, The Sacrifice). Andrei, haunted by dreams of his past and also struggling with his lack of faith, finds himself drawn to the peculiar Domenico, who had mysteriously, several years before, locked up his family in their home for a week until the authorities intervened, giving the man a reputation for being the town's kook.
Eugenia, meanwhile, struggles to connect with Andrei, finding him increasingly remote. Domenico begs Andrei to carry a lit candle across the town's spa pool when it's mostly drained and getting cleaned out by workers. Andrei, who's suffering from some fatal malady, possibly a brain tumor, does this task which proves difficult due to wind blowing out the candle. Meanwhile, Domenico is in Rome on top of a statue of a horse, delivering a harangue about modern society, about the past, about the need to sacrifice. He pours gasoline on himself and becomes a human torch while inmates from a nearby psychiatric ward watch. Andrei, after three tries, manages to reach the other side of the pool with the candle lit all the way. He then drops dead.
Some might think, given that description, what the fuck is this movie about? Tarkovsky was in the habit of not explaining himself. His images, though, his curious dreamy use of sound, create fascinating moments of contemplation for a careful viewer. I've never understood any of his movies upon just one viewing. What I do take away from his films are scenes of astonishingly executed cinematic poetry. In Nostalghia, a dream image of two women and a girl gradually entering the frame, which shows a long slope down to a winding river valley, with mist making the scene resemble an enclosed world. A dog trots into the image from the right. Off in the distance can be discerned a white horse. The image hangs on for a few minutes, recurring at least twice in somewhat different forms later on. It's something in Andrei's head, yet that dog looks exactly like the dog owned by the mad Domenico. Andrei's dream, at least an element from it, exists in the outside world.
Tarkovsky's way is to not give you the final answer. The film can be seen as the tale of a man, Andrei, knowing he's close to his own demise, reproducing the journey of his idolized Russian composer hero, searching agonizingly for meaning to life, to the possibility there's something else waiting afterwards. He doesn't know that Domenico burned himself to death, but he knows, at the last, that he fulfilled Domenico's last request: moving a lit candle across the space of a pool where sacred activities probably occurred in past centuries. Andrei's three attempts to make it across the pool's wet floor are the only suspenseful moments in the film, difficult to watch, almost. Tarkovsky shows every moment, all of the difficulties associated with doing something that seems simple, but isn't. The candle's flame, too, reflects in miniature the big flame Domenico becomes as crazy people look on.
Eugenia has a much closer relationship to spirituality than does Andrei. She becomes tired of his gloominess, his skepticism. Whether or not she's attracted to him is hard to determine. Whatever the case, she fails to get through to him, abandoning him near the end, but changing her mind. Finally, her wish to get back together with him is made moot by his death.
It's a slow but impressive film; I didn't understand it very well, but it touched enough points of comprehension in me that I liked it.
Vic Neptune
When I think of Andrey Tarkovsky's films (Stalker, The Mirror, The Sacrifice, et al) I see settings undergoing atmospheric changes, his camera lingering during long shots, showing the arrival of a front in the form of a sudden onrush of wind (The Mirror), or in Nostalghia (1983), mist covering a rolling Italian landscape. Such moments indicate Tarkovsky's patience at seeking and achieving visual effects of a natural character, the kind of thing manufactured by CGI in many movies nowadays. He showed in his career what could be done with what's there.
This penultimate film of his, shot in Italy three years before his death (he was only fifty-four then in 1986), has a simple story: a Russian author, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Jankovsky), goes to Italy with an Italian interpreter, Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), to do research for his biography of a Russian composer who had lived in Italy for a time. At a spa, Andrei meets the mentally ill Domenico (Erland Josephson, one of Ingmar Bergman's actors who also played the lead in Tarkovsky's last film, The Sacrifice). Andrei, haunted by dreams of his past and also struggling with his lack of faith, finds himself drawn to the peculiar Domenico, who had mysteriously, several years before, locked up his family in their home for a week until the authorities intervened, giving the man a reputation for being the town's kook.
Eugenia, meanwhile, struggles to connect with Andrei, finding him increasingly remote. Domenico begs Andrei to carry a lit candle across the town's spa pool when it's mostly drained and getting cleaned out by workers. Andrei, who's suffering from some fatal malady, possibly a brain tumor, does this task which proves difficult due to wind blowing out the candle. Meanwhile, Domenico is in Rome on top of a statue of a horse, delivering a harangue about modern society, about the past, about the need to sacrifice. He pours gasoline on himself and becomes a human torch while inmates from a nearby psychiatric ward watch. Andrei, after three tries, manages to reach the other side of the pool with the candle lit all the way. He then drops dead.
Some might think, given that description, what the fuck is this movie about? Tarkovsky was in the habit of not explaining himself. His images, though, his curious dreamy use of sound, create fascinating moments of contemplation for a careful viewer. I've never understood any of his movies upon just one viewing. What I do take away from his films are scenes of astonishingly executed cinematic poetry. In Nostalghia, a dream image of two women and a girl gradually entering the frame, which shows a long slope down to a winding river valley, with mist making the scene resemble an enclosed world. A dog trots into the image from the right. Off in the distance can be discerned a white horse. The image hangs on for a few minutes, recurring at least twice in somewhat different forms later on. It's something in Andrei's head, yet that dog looks exactly like the dog owned by the mad Domenico. Andrei's dream, at least an element from it, exists in the outside world.
Tarkovsky's way is to not give you the final answer. The film can be seen as the tale of a man, Andrei, knowing he's close to his own demise, reproducing the journey of his idolized Russian composer hero, searching agonizingly for meaning to life, to the possibility there's something else waiting afterwards. He doesn't know that Domenico burned himself to death, but he knows, at the last, that he fulfilled Domenico's last request: moving a lit candle across the space of a pool where sacred activities probably occurred in past centuries. Andrei's three attempts to make it across the pool's wet floor are the only suspenseful moments in the film, difficult to watch, almost. Tarkovsky shows every moment, all of the difficulties associated with doing something that seems simple, but isn't. The candle's flame, too, reflects in miniature the big flame Domenico becomes as crazy people look on.
Eugenia has a much closer relationship to spirituality than does Andrei. She becomes tired of his gloominess, his skepticism. Whether or not she's attracted to him is hard to determine. Whatever the case, she fails to get through to him, abandoning him near the end, but changing her mind. Finally, her wish to get back together with him is made moot by his death.
It's a slow but impressive film; I didn't understand it very well, but it touched enough points of comprehension in me that I liked it.
Vic Neptune
Comments
Post a Comment