Nostalghia

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.

Everybody who has seen some Tarkovsky movies knows that a thrilling plot is not to be expected. However with "Nostalgia" Tarkovsky seems to outperform himself in this respect. Maybe this is the reason that "Nostalgia" is the least viewed and least reviewed film of the Tarkovsky oeuvre. I saw some clips with an interpretation of the movie that had a longer running time than the film itself!

The only thing that is petty clear is that "Nostalgia" is a film about homesickness. The film presents this in three layers. The main character Andrei (played by Oleg Yankovsky) is a Russian writer who does research in Italy about the 18th century Russian composer Pavel Sosnovksy (framed after the real composer Maksim Berezovsky) who was studying opera in Italy. Sosnovsky was homesick, as is Andrei a couple of century's later. The third layer is Tarkovsky himself. "Nostalgia" was his first film shot outside Russia, and he would not return to his home country. In this respect "Nostalgia" has a strong autobiographical element.

The film has two other main characters, the translater Eugenia (Domiziana Giordana) and the eccentric Domenico (Erland Josephson). The clips I refered to above had al sorts of profound thoughts about their meaning, but for me it was not obvious at all. At one point in the dreams of Andrei Eugenia met with his Russian wife. This reminded me very much of "Persona" (1966, Ingmar Bergman). Domenico is the fool of the village, but is he real a fool? His character has some resemblance with the character of Johannes Borgen in "Ordet" (1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer). In general the function of the character of Johannes was more clear to me than that of Domenico. Nevertheless there is one wonderful scene with Domenico. Domenico has kept his family inside his house for seven years because he is expecting the end of the World. After they are freed by local police his young son runs away and Domenico runs after him. In the beginning of the scene it is obvious that Domenico is trying to catch the boy. After a while this hunt gradually evolves in accompanying the boy in his voyage of discovery. A very beautiful scene indeed.

The way to appreciate "Nostalgia" may be to give up explaining and to start enjoying the beauty of the images. Images often with a lot of fog and certainly not the images you would find in a tourist travel guide of Tuscany, but beautiful all the same. Perhaps the most well known image is the one at the end of the film in which a wooden house Russian style turns out te be enclosed by the ruins of an Italian cathedral. An image also summing up the main theme of the film.

The nostalgia, in the film's title, isn't just the physical longing for something in the past, it's the spiritual longing that so many people strive for. This shouldn't surprise an student of Tarkovsky's work since no director, possibly with the exception of Ingmar Bergman, analyzed spirituality as Tarkovsky did.

NOSTALGHIA follows the trekking of a Russian traveling through Italy along with his beautiful interpreter. His purpose for being there does not come to the viewer easily. Most of the scenes in the movie are filled with a lot of silence, and even the action that does take place, is minimal. Eventually, we come to understand that he is there to find some cultural reinforcement for his Russian background. As the film progresses, we seem to take on the role of the main character in the story, as an observer to events. Throughout his travels he becomes a witness to religious processions, theological discussions, and the rituals of a God-fearing lunatic. The lunatic, played masterfully by Erland Josephson, is looked down upon by a lot of local citizens. Apparently, in the past, he locked his family in his house for a long time, anticipating the end of the World. The movie documents his effect on the Russian traveler, and the traveler's longing to recapture his spirituality.

A lot has been said of the ten-minute unbroken sequence where the lead protagonist attempts to carry a lighted candle from one end of a pool to the other. Some see it as utterly boring. Personally, I was fascinated. In it, we see how the protagonist finally attempts to do something in order to recapture his spirituality. For the entire length of the movie he has been an observer, now he is an active participant. To be fair, his action does take the form of a ritual, not the building of a church, or water immersion, but then again, so much of spirituality is ritual. Tarkovsky correctly identifies how it's the continuity that helps us get through life, knowing that some things will never change our strong religious convictions. That's when the protagonist finally comes to realize that action must take place. It's no coincidence that this scene takes place after a demonstration given by the Erland Josephson character. It's an amazing scene. In it he gives an intelligent speech about the desolation of art. It also imparts an important question to the viewer about those who truly make a difference in the world: the observers, or the "insane", who try to take positive action on the behalf of others.

No praise of any Tarkovsky film is complete without talking about the technical angle of his work. In NOSTALGHIA Tarkovsky is proven again to be a master of beauty, carving out beautiful images into the Italian landscape. Even the indoor scenes are beautiful. NOSTALGIA is further evidence of Tarkovsky's desire to elevate film as an art. He paints well...

It's sometimes true that the most demanding movies can yield the most lasting rewards, and the penultimate film by the late Andrei Tarkovsky certainly puts the theory to the test. This was the first feature he directed outside the Soviet Union, and its protagonist is (like Tarkovsky himself was) a Russian artist exiled in Italy. But don't expect anything remotely plot-driven; like other Tarkovsky films it's a dense, challenging exploration of faith, madness and memory: beautiful, enigmatic, intellectual, and extremely slow moving. Many of the sequences are a labor to sit through, but the final shot, in which the director transplants a Russian cottage (complete with landscape) inside the massive walls of an ruined Gothic cathedral, is by itself compelling enough to erase the aftertaste of even the most tedious passages.

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.