FFWD Weekly
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Film by FFWD Staff Recently released on DVD, Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1966 masterpiece Andrei Rublev is finally available on home video in its entirety (and in its proper wide-screen aspect ratio, too). This release offers the definitive 205-minute director’s cut of what one commentator has called "a super-production gone ideologically berserk." Indeed, it is difficult to adequately describe the scope and grandeur of Tarkovsky’s epic without trivializing it, except perhaps to say that any viewer with the patience for its extreme length, uncompromisingly torpid pace, and dense structure will be duly and amply rewarded in the end. In retrospect, it is probably fortunate that a film this rich and complex refuses to be constrained by traditional narrative considerations, and opts instead to meander in and out of its titular protagonist’s "story," even while placing it in the context of a particular era of Russian history. Rublev was an Orthodox monk and icon painter who worked during the time of the Tatar invasions of the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Tarkovsky’s vision of Rublev, however, sees him as much a martyred saint or Christ figure as a minor artistic talent, and it’s Rublev’s considerable and numerous crises of faith that really provide the film’s underlying narrative framework. A great deal of Andrei Rublev is about the rigours of the creative process, especially those faced by the likes of this monastic artist and his colleagues. They require an almost unflinching faith in order to render their religious subjects with passion even while they are confronted regularly by the more worldly horrors of a nation under siege. At one crucial point, Rublev suffers so great a loss of his faith that he ceases painting, takes a vow of silence, and is literally left speechless for almost the entire second half of the film (an impressively stoic performance from Anatoly Solonitsyn, who expressively conveys Rublev’s unspoken torture). Redemption ultimately revisits Rublev in the form, resonance, and tenor of a huge silver church bell cast by a young, inexperienced bell-caster’s son. Somehow the boy’s devotion delivers Rublev from the madness and sorrow into which the young lad plunges himself more deeply. The film’s penultimate sequence is exquisitely poignant, as the experienced painter comforts the junior artisan, revealing the pain Rublev has suffered by denying himself his creative outlet. The film’s finale offers a spectacular montage of Rublev’s extant paintings; their shock of colours are a stunning contrast to the stark black-and-white cinematography preceding them. Even though it would be virtually impossible to digest all of Andrei Rublev in one viewing, Tarkovsky somehow miraculously pulls all the narrative strands and themes together to offer something resembling resolution. Every one of the dense, ideological discussions, horrific and beautiful tableaux, and various subplots too numerous to mention culminates in this tremendous reflective denouement. Nevertheless, if you’re still left scratching your head by this film which invests its vast spectacle with considerable substance, the DVD format also offers a rare interview with the decidedly enigmatic director. It may not offer explicit clarification of the film’s various mysteries, but at least it’s there to pose a few more questions. This one will keep you thinking for hours, days and weeks afterwards.

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