There have been three truly great Russian filmmakers. The first was Sergei Eisenstein, whose 1925 film The Battleship Potemkin became one of the most influential and important movies of all time. The third was Aleksandr Sokurov, whose movies such as Russian Ark, Father and Son, and last year’s film festival hit Faust. But the one I want to focus on is the second one, I suppose you could say the quintessential great Russian filmmaker. His name is Andrei Tarkovsky, and between 1962 and 1986 he directed only seven films before he succumbed to cancer while staying in Paris after shooting his final movie, The Sacrifice, in Sweden on the same island that Ingmar Bergman lived.
Since I have access to DVDs of all Tarkovsky’s movies (except for The Sacrifice, sadly), I’ll be rewatching the ones I’ve already seen as well as watching two new ones that I haven’t seen. And, I’ll be reviewing every single film right here at Southern Vision. The ones I have seen are Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris and Stalker. The two that I haven’t seen are The Mirror and Nostalgia. The DVD of Nostalgia is currently unavailable but hopefully it should become available in a week’s time. If not, I’ll have to postpone my review of that film.
Why Tarkovsky, you might be asking? Why not? He is a great director that I admire and cherish, and I haven’t seen any of his movies in a while. So in the meantime, as I get this big marathon underway, tell me, what’s your favorite Tarkovsky movie? If you haven’t seen any, then be sure to stick around and read the reviews. You might just come across a film that really interests you.
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