Widely recognized as a masterpiece, Andrei Tarkovsky's 205-minute medieval epic, based on the life of the Russian monk and icon painter, was not seen as the director intended it until its re-release over twenty years after its completion. The film was not screened publicly in its own country (and then only in an abridged form) until 1972, three years after winning the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Calling the film frightening, obscure, and unhistorical, Soviet
authorities edited the picture on several occasions, removing as much as an entire hour from the original. Presented as a tableaux of seven sections in black and white, with a final montage of Rublev's painted icons in color, the film takes an unflinching gaze at medieval Russia during the first quarter of the 15th century, a period of Mongol-Tartar invasion and growing Christian influence. Commissioned to paint the interior of the Vladimir cathedral, Andrei Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn) leaves the Andronnikov monastery with an entourage of monks and assistants, witnessing in his travels the degradations befalling his fellow Russians, including pillage, oppression from tyrants and Mongols, torture, rape, and plague. Faced with the brutalities of the world outside the religious enclave, Rublev's faith is shaken, prompting him to question the uses or even possibility of art in a degraded world. After Mongols sack the city of Vladimir, burning the very cathedral that he has been commissioned to paint, Rublev takes a vow of silence and withdraws completely, removing himself to the hermetic confines of the monastery. Rising quickly out of this mire, the film's final section (a short story in its own right) concerns a boy named Boriska (Nikolai Burlyayev) who convinces a group of travelling bell-makers that his father passed on to him the secret of bell-making. The men take Boriska along, mostly because they pity and are amused by him, but they are quickly enthralled by the boy's ambition, determination, and confidence that he alone knows how to build the perfect bell. Boriska is soon commanding an army of assistants and peasant workers, and, indeed, his fierce temperament and refusal to accept anything but the best possible work and materials from the men fools the viewer -- possibly Boriska himself is fooled -- into thinking that he does in fact possess the secret, and that on the appointed day when the silver bell is lifted from the ground and its mallet set in place, it will ring. Amid this maelstrom of activity and confusion, Rublev appears; at first standoffish and mistrustful of the boy, he finds himself drawn to Boriska's courage and unselfconscious desire to create. Moved to put aside his vow of silence, Rublev serves finally as the boy's confessor, and he finds that, through Boriska, his faith, and art, have been renewed. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi
Since there always seems to be more going on in the head of the film's director than in the head of the man playing Andrei, the system did not work for me.
A difficult, long, sometimes brutal work that truly justifies the term 'epic' -- not in the overused sense that has come to mean big and loud -- in both vision and execution.
Restored to its original cut (180 minutes), Tarkovsky's glorious masterpiec, an epic yet personal tale about the conflict between artists and society, is justly considered as one of the most important Russian films ever made; on par with Eisenstien's best
The notion of art as a 'religious experience' is sometimes bandied about too freely. Tarkovsky is one of a handful of filmmakers for whom this ideal was no cheap metaphor.
It's Tarkovsky's lighter touches, coupled with his majestic vision, that makes Andrei Rublev such compulsive viewing some 25 years after its original release.
Perfection lingers in each frame as Tarkovsky crafts one of the finest films ever made, an ecstatic story about art that has little interest in the artist himself, but in the power of art to transcend the age that produces it.
While the pacing of the film is deliberate and the presentation frequently abtruse, the stunning compositions, elaborate camera movements, compelling performances -- provide ample reward, if you are willing to make the effort.
Tarkovsky's keen sense of spatial dynamics make Andrei Rublev a film of unerring beauty, one that would be remembered as some kind of masterwork on the strength of its photography alone.
Tough going but definitely worth it with a slew of indelible images and scenes. Full review later.
October 7, 2011
Thomas Bowler
Super Reviewer
Tarkovsky's art is pure poetry, and it carefully lingers for over three hours through the dominions of faith, brutality, and mainly the role of the artist in the world.
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