Tag: Andrei Tarkovsky

Soviet Film Wednesday: Solaris

When psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the space station that is orbiting the oceanic planet Solaris to investigate the psychological unrest of the skeleton crew of three working there, he soon finds himself having the same mental difficulties. But let’s go back a little, when Solaris begins in an idyllic countryside scene, where Kris Kelvin visits …

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Soviet Film Wednesday: Mirror

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, and much like Norstein’s animation Tale of Tales, Mirror (Зеркало, Zerkalo) is another stream of consciousness film that strings together memories. The film is not meant to symbolize anything, but rather uses intuition as a means of expression. The main character, loosely based on Tarkovsky himself, is a dying poet contemplating his …

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Soviet Film Wednesday: Ivan’s Childhood

Ivan’s Childhood (aka My Name is Ivan) was made in 1962, and is widely regarded as one of the most skillfully crafted films of all time. It is directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and stars a young Nikolay Burlyaev. The film delves into the impact of war on young Ivan, a twelve year old orphan who befriends …

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Soviet Film Wednesday: Stalker

The enigmatic sci-fi film Stalker, released October 20, 1982, is arguably Andrei Tarkovsky’s most haunting piece. It’s a quiet, slow drip of a film that was based on the 1972 short story Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. In an unknown place and time lies a heavily guarded desolate wasteland, shrouded in secrecy, called The …

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Through the Looking Glass with Andrei Tarkovsky

Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky was born on April 4, 1932, in Zavrazhye, Soviet Union. His mother, Maria Vishnyakova, attended the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute and worked as a corrector, and his father was the renowned poet Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky. Andrei Tarkovsky is well known for his reflective, natural, and dreamlike themes and sequences, as well …

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Soviet Film Wednesday: The Sounds of Tarkovsky

The independent film streaming service Fandor has put together a mesmerizing compilation of audio moments from Andrei Tarkovsky films, showing how the director emphasizes particular sounds as one of his many creative film-making techniques. The films shown in this two minute collage are The Steamroller and the Violin (1961), Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), …

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