Sacrifice

Watched this movie by Tarkovsky, called Sacrifice. I have this movie in Swedish, with English subtitles; I have kinda gotten accustomed to the Swedish movies watching so much of Bergman.

The movie is typical Tarkovsky- excellent visuals with a deepening impact and We don’t expect anything less from Tarkovsky. The cinematography in his movies seems to exhibit much more the skill of a still photographer than that of a movie-maker. Right since when the movie starts, the stills are in the right place. Like any other of Tarkovsky's, stills speak a lot here, probably the most about the story. The serene lake, with little signs of human activity, have an overall gloomy effect, possibly due to the wrongs of the human intervention. The human acts never fit the nature in these depictions.

Nature has this mystic beauty which human beings at first seemed so fit (because this imagery is indeed so appealing) the part that Tarkovsky unveils to is usually very dark. Through the dark imagery, Tarkovsky highlights the failures of our civilization in surviving as a part of nature. To think of manipulating nature, appears to be an implicit and necessary anomaly through his movies.

My favorite pick among all his movies still continues to be the CTALKEP (Stalker). That movies was packed with everything that Tarkovsky has to offer us, with dialogues as pithy as they can get.

Sacrifice shows us this family that has a philosophizing and introspective member named Alexandro, who seems to voice what Tarkovsky himself could be thinking. The conversations with his family members depict the conflicts and dissents among Western culture. Alexandro is in search of truth; but at the same time, he rejects religion. The way things progress in the movie, after the outbreak of a war (whose particulars are not necessary, although this is supposed to be the third world war) the old man Alexandro falls back to religion, giving way to his emotions and beliefs over logical understanding, which would eventually result in irrational but unavoidable 'rituals'.

The essential conflict like always, is that of rationality and ritual. Fighting with himself, and lost in his dilemmas, Alexandro still fears God. He decides to sacrifice the kid in the family, and even performs the ritual union with the assumed witch (overcoming his rational self). In some mystic fashion, union with a woman, although apparently evil is always seen as a redemption, as a blessing-in-the-end. A comparison of the feminine and the mystic with Mother Mary is thus bound to occur.

Now here is a word on Cast, and hence of course, on women. But first off, Alexandro is done a splendid job. His dialogue delivery and expressions are impeccable. Women are not exceedingly beautiful, and they are not supposed to be. What they are made to appear in the movie are women of dinivity, with strong features that don't fit the norms of classic beauties. The whole effect is contributed by images of Russian saints (a very incompatible set of ideas with Communism). Russian religion and belief-system is an integral, probably central part of Tarkovsky’s cinema. This movie probably has been the best expression of that idea.

Like many of the art cinema, there is what I call the after-effect of this movie. You may not understand fully what was going while watching the movie. But after you’re done watched the movie (fully) and back-reference it to various themes in your mind, you seem to understand how great the movie was, and you even may want to watch it again so as to really confirm that you didn’t miss anything that could have helped connecting the dots better. Of course, if you have visuals of this deep an impact the whole experience is worth re-experiencing.


No other art can fix time except cinema; Time we have lived is settled in our soul in and the experience is placed within time. Present slips acquires material weight...

- Tarkovsky


How time is turned back is what he wants to imply through this movie.


Sometime, I would want to know what exactly went on with personal life of Tarkovsky, so that I may understand what eventually drove him to such a dismal rejection of the progress of mankind. As a person, Tarkovsky is like me and probably like Bergman, he has emotional recalls but not exact recollections of memory.