Nostalghia

There are very few people worthy of the accolade of "Genius" but the late Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky was definitely one of them. In his film-making career he is responsible for some of the most beautiful images ever to be put on a cinema screen.

"Nostalghia" deals with a Russian poet who is in Italy to research the life of a Russian composer, who died there. Accompanied only by his female, Italian, interpretor, who is attracted to him, the poet feels strong feelings of home-sickness for Russia and he strongly misses his wife and child who stayed behind.

This was Tarkovsky's first film made outside the Soviet Union (and his first in a language other than Russian), but it is still very obviously a Tarkovsky film, complete with many haunting images of water and fire. in fact, instead of the beautiful, sun-drenched Italy we are used to seeing on film, here the country is grey, wet and shrouded in mist. As usual in Tarkovsky's films there are many changes between colour footage and black-and-white (or sepia). Here, the poet's memories of Russia are presented in monochrome.

As with all Tarkovsky films, "Nostalghia" demands a great deal from the viewer. It is very slow moving and requires a great deal of patience and concentration. Also, be warned that Tarkovsky did not see cinema as "entertainment" but as an art form. I would advise anyone to make the effort and stick with it, though. It is a great work of art.

Previous critical comments about Nostalgia include 'the nearest to poetry that cinema can ever aspire'. There is nothing more one can add, this comment sums it up totally. I would say that this film is different every time I watch it, it's more than poetry, it's hypnotic to the state of Tarkovsky casting a spell on the viewer.

Apparently even Tarkovsky described this film as 'tedious', so you can imagine what it's like to be on the receiving end. But for some reason I don't find it so, although there is the occasional longuer. It's one of the great films of cinema, although certainly rather odd. Once again it has an impossibly glamourous Russian wandering about looking moody, engrossed in the big issues. In fact, the female lead falls for him and is exasperated by his absurd interest in a local derelict. She flashes a tit in erotic frustration which is unusual for Tarkovsky, he seems unwilling to really engage in issues of sexuality, preferring them to be chaste in an almost victorian manner. Certainly there was some accusations of a reactionary attitude to women, for at the start of the film a priest tells the guide that she should sacrifice herself for the sake of raising children. She is made to look rather absurd in the film, but in truth, so do the male characters. Perhaps it was due to cultural traditions in Tarkovsky's background rather than deliberate misogyny.

The Italians didn't take to this film as it did not film Italy in a vibrant manner, preferring to evocate the alienation and melancholia of it's Russian lead. Tarkovsky's brilliance as a director is well illustrated in the film where the Russian and the old man talk in a room. The camera seems to turn a full 360 degrees although you don't notice it. The way his characters and objects seem to float in and out of frame is amazing. It's strange, but nature seems to perform for Tarkovsky. Even the animals seem willing to be directed, a dog staring straight into the camera with an almost unearthly and uncanny presence and stillness. The scene where the Russian lies on his hotel bed and his nostalgia conjurs up his dog in a dream like but also tangibly real manner is powerful and haunting.

The problem with this film is that the lead character was not really in exile and could go home anytime, unlike Tarkovsky himself, so why was he in so much pain? Is it mere homesickness as opposed to the real longing for one's homeland rightly belonging to the truly disenfranchised? But perhaps that is not the issue, more that when man finds himself and true wisdom, is it too late in the day for him to use what he has learned? The self sacrifice of the old man is a return to an old theme of Tarkovsky's that perhaps only shame can save mankind.

There are many eccentric aspects to this film, for instance the Russian wandering around up to his waist in water. Also there is a brief and bizarre shot of an angel stomping around outside a house. As it's Tarkovsky you don't burst out laughing. Perhaps he reaches the parts other directors cannot reach.

But there are also some vividly beautiful moments. The doves being released in the church, and the light filtering through a stream of water in a gutted house. Towards the end of his career, Tarkovsky began to question the rigid criteria he used in shooting a film in a way he felt won purity and aschewed the vulgar and trivial, but I think he got it right here. A marvelous film.

Like a gallery of someone else's strong memories/obsessions, the luxurious images and painstaking movements attracted me with their clarity and disturbed me with their foreignness through the entire film. The undeniable beauty of his visual compositions pulled me in like any flawless performance. I felt no desire to visit his landmarks because they called to mind my own strong memories of similar grandeur. It did not matter that these were his choices. All that mattered was the complete realization of each spiritual personal epiphany. The dialogues, monologues, and mini-plays, on the other hand, disturbed me by adding layers of interpretation that either had to be accepted and incorporated into a less pleasant solipsistic whole, or separately analyzed and digested for their complexities in search of a grander vision. It was as if a famous artist began talking to you about the single meaning of each work of his as you observed them. Does he intend to deny you the pleasure of finding your own answers, or is he simply adding a new layer to enliven your own search for meaning? Accepting the latter explanation, has kept my mind busily turning for several days now.

Regardless of whether you accept Tarkovsky as philosophically profound or wise, his work is complex and open to multiple interpretations like a well-written haiku. Was Domenico deluded and tragicomic and the poet's torturous journey with the candle a sad joke? Are our memories of the past so intimately woven into our perceptions of ourselves that we cannot avoid irrational acts that imperil our future? Does strangeness or madness have a singular spiritual value all its own like an architectural ruin or a ravaged landscape? Do we take ourselves too seriously or have we over-developed our social, political, and scientific infrastructure to the extent that we are blind to the real world and threaten its existence? Are our poets and mystics spiritual resources or oversensitive fools, and does it matter? Perhaps Tarkovsky would disagree with every one of my questions. I am certain that others will have different questions and answers. However, for those that don't dismiss this film as self-indulgent and ponderous, Tarkovsky offers a rich composition that can support and survive several generations of critics and interpreters.

A more traditional episodic film with a clearly defined story line and a swift movement between scenes would have less to hide behind that a film like "Nostalghia," but there is no law that says a piece of art cannot be obscure. It comes down to a question of faith in the artist and whether it really matters how creative or insightful he was so long as you personally can find meaning in his work.

What a strange film, utterly lacking in narrative, self-indulgent, in a sense tedious, but I sat transfixed for two hours. Someone once described cinema as 'painting with light' and there isn't a single shot in this movie you wouldn't have been proud to photograph. It's utterly beautiful. You don't engage with it as you would with a regular movie, you just sit back and let the images wash over you, frankly I could have watched with the sound off and the subtitles off. I'm lying about the sound. Tarkovsky is a genius for dripping water. The switch between film stock is incredible, the sepia is some of the most breath-taking cinematography I have ever seen. This is pure art house cinema in all its gorgeous, pretentious grandeur.