The Mirror (1975)
"Zerkalo" (original title)

A man in his forties is going to die and remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments but things that also tell the story of all the Russian nation...

Director:

Andrei Tarkovsky

Writers:

Aleksandr Misharin, Andrei Tarkovsky,

Stars:

Margarita Terekhova, Oleg Yankovskiy, Filipp Yankovsky

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Margarita Terekhova	...	Natalya / Maroussia - the Mother
Oleg Yankovskiy	...	The Father
Filipp Yankovsky	...	Aleksei - 5-years-old
Ignat Daniltsev	...	Ignat / Aleksei - 12-year-old
Nikolay Grinko	...	Printery Director
Alla Demidova	...	Lisa
Yuriy Nazarov	...	Military trainer
Anatoliy Solonitsyn	...	Forensic doctor
Larisa Tarkovskaya	...	Nadezha - Mother of 12-y-o Alexei
Tamara Ogorodnikova	...	Nanny / Neighbour / Strange woman at the tea table
Yuri Sventisov	...	Yuri Zhary
Tamara Reshetnikova
Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy	...	Aleksei (voice)
Arseni Tarkovsky	...	Father (voice)
E. Del Bosque	...	A Spaniard

Storyline

The director mixes flashbacks, historical footage and original poetry to illustrate the reminiscences of a dying man about his childhood during World War II, adolescence, and a painful divorce in his family. The story interweaves reflections about Russian history and society.

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Plot Keywords:

childhood | poetry | flashback | divorce | russian history | 

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian Spanish

Release Date:

7 March 1975 (Soviet Union)

Also Known As:

The Mirror

Filming Locations:

Mosfilm Studios, Moscow, Russia

Box Office

Budget:

RUR 622,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mosfilm

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Wintertime scenes in the Mirror echo Bruegel's paintings Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap and The Hunters in the Snow.

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Goofs

In the first scene, in which stutterer Yuri Zhary is being hypnotized, a shadow of the boom mic is prominently visible on the wall behind him. However, because this is clearly supposed to be a recreation of a TV broadcast, it appears to be a intentional error.

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Quotes

Father: It seems to make me return to the place, poignantly dear to my heart, where my grandfathers house used to be in which i was born 40 years ago right on the dinner table. Each time i try to enter it, something prevents me from doing that. I see this dream again and again. And when i see those walls made of logs and the dark entrence, even in my dream i become aware that I'm only dreaming it. And the overwhelming joy is clouded by anticipation of awakening. At times something happens and i stop ...

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Connections

Referenced in Life as a Dream (2007)

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Soundtracks

"Orgelbüchlein - Das alte Jahre vergangen ist - BWV 614"
Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach
Played during the opening credits

User Reviews

See it and die

We are talking visual poetry here. For almost the entire film, every square inch of screen is minutely painted. Ordinary criticism doesn't apply, there is no comparison between this and any other film.

So many scenes have you holding your breath in awe. The smallest movement of light is choreographed precisely. A shadow across someone's face, the wind in the trees - these are not simply images of those things, but the ungraspable nature of life, regret, beauty, memory. So much more lies beneath the surface, as we are shown a reflection in a mirror that momentarily purports to be reality, but need not necessarily be interpreted as such.

The film's magic derives from Tarkovsky's surefooted ability to succeed with a succession of intense, beautiful images. He cannot put a foot wrong. Discontinuity in the narrative give the appearance of complexity, but Tarkovksy would insist that the basic thrust of the narrative is simple. The film is immensely personal, and the disconnections only serve to involve the viewer more – we are allowed to fill in the gaps ourselves.

To appreciate all this you need an essential sympathy for nostalgia and memories, for the passing of life, and for regret. You need an appreciation of a silent room and what it previously held, and of nature. You will need a sense of living in a turbulent and dangerous world, where all beauty is transient and sad. You will need to understand how small moments in life can become the most precious.

The film is tragic because, like memories, it lingers. It shows us details beneath the surface and how they can affect us. It shows life in the context of death, nature, the times and places we have passed through. The camera ponders and paints all this in beautiful detail.

Of course, real life is never so rich nor so intense - only momentarily so. The film wants to distil as much of that precious beauty as possible in a number of disjointed moments, coloured through memory and imagination, from childhood through to the point of death.

Apply it to your own life. There is no more than this.