Andrei Tarkovsky and Sven Nykvist shooting the fire sequence
Andrei Tarkovsky and Sven Nykvist shooting the final sequence
Tarkovsky on the set of The Sacrifice, 1986
Andrei Tarkovsky and Sven Nykvist setting up the fire sequence
Andrei Tarkovsky passport photo
THE SACRIFICE
(Offret)
A
Sweden Great Britain France (142 mi)
1986 d: Andrei Tarkovsky
Perhaps the most underrated film in all of Tarkovsky’s
works, though it’s hard to be placed above ANDREI RUBLEV (1966), THE MIRROR
(1975), and Stalker
(1979), with SOLARIS (1972) not far behind, where it can be seen as the
summation of his life and career, even his last will and testament, as the
experience is unlike any other, the kind of thing that reinspires one’s belief
in humankind. While there is some question whether Tarkovsky was aware of
the gravity of his illness during the shooting, falling ill while making the
film, yet he was still contemplating future projects and wasn’t diagnosed with
terminal lung cancer until well into the editing process at the end of 1985,
receiving treatments in Paris the following January, ultimately dying of lung
cancer later that year in December 1986, where his wife Larissa (12 years
later) and favorite actor Anatoliy Solonitsyn (4 years earlier) also died of
the same cancer, as all were exposed to suspected chemical poisoning from
contaminated waters during the lengthy shoot of Stalker
(1979), where he was too ill to attend the screening at Cannes in 1986, winning
the Grand Prize (2nd place) for the second time, also the FIPRESCI and
Ecumenical Jury Prizes for the third times in his career, his prizes collected
by his son Andrei, to whom this film is dedicated “with hope and confidence,”
while it’s also listed among the "Vatican Best
Films List" in a select group of 45 films compiled in 1995 on the
100th anniversary of cinema, where it’s included under the “Religion” category along
with his earlier film, ANDREI RUBLEV (1969). No one made films like
Tarkovsky, or shot scenes with his degree of artistic assuredness, whose
somber, mentally challenging, and spiritually transcendent films are marked by
exquisite film composition, mesmerizing long takes, philosophic curiosity, a
devotion to classical music and art history, a fascination with exploring a
mystical and spiritual realm of human understanding, while seamlessly blending
dreams and memories into real time, though his likely successor may be Terrence
Malick, who is equally inspired by many of the same metaphysical qualities, but
his influence would have to extend to Béla Tarr, Carlos Reygadas, Andrei
Zvyagintsev, Alexander Sokurov, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Apichatpong Weerasethakul,
and Claire Denis, who is credited as one of the casting directors in this
film.
However, it should be pointed out that the unique beauty and
reverential extravagance of Tarkovsky’s visual composition is matched by no
other, so if viewers haven’t seen any of his films, it is recommended that you
refrain from even looking at the images from his films on the Internet, YouTube
or at stills in cinema books so that you will be exposed for the first time to
the full impact of his visual mastery when experiencing his films. His
films are that dazzling and awe-inspiring. The same can’t be said for
anyone else. While he has a slim body of work, only completing 7 features
in 25 years, his diaries were filled with ideas for dozens of films, as Tarkovsky
complained bitterly about the bureaucratic resistance he encountered, where
scripts had to be approved by official state censors, with the Party apparatus
exercising increasing control over his films, forcing him to alter his original
plans. For instance, he submitted his proposal for his second film ANDREI
RUBLEV in 1961, which was completed in 1966, but not released in Russia until
1971, making it a ten-year process, though it was shown out of competition at
Cannes in 1969 where it was immediately described as “the most profound, most
powerful and most moving historical film ever to appear on the Russian
screen.” Tarkovsky’s films are bewilderingly complex, sharing with fellow
Russian citizens a mystical soul compelled to ask unanswerable questions with Dostoyevskian
seriousness and sincerity, with viewers left adrift at the beginning of each
new scene, where every single sequence leads to something that is completely
surprising or unimaginable, often wondering how this event or that image fits
into the overall understanding of the narrative, which may not become
recognizable until well into the film, if at all. The dense tapestry
compacted into each of his films are his trademark, where even decades later
viewers are privileged to discover things you will find nowhere else, usually
left with more questions than answers. But if there is a single image
that runs through every one of his films it is water, including rivers, lakes,
oceans, puddles, dripping water, or rain, especially rain, often coming in torrents
that seem to catch his characters off guard, or even more incredulously rain
falling indoors, where Tarkovsky uses rain as sculpture, with water seeping
through a hole in the ceiling of a room, where no one else has been able to
capture the movement—or the stillness—of water like Tarkovsky, and certainly no
one has used it so artistically throughout their career.
Several Tarkovsky films begin or end with classical
paintings or works of art that profoundly illustrate or reinforce what we see
onscreen, opening here with a slow pan over Leonardo da Vinci’s The
Adoration of the Magi during the opening credits, an early, unfinished
painting from 1481 that still shows traces of the artist’s original drawing
underneath the paint, depicting a pagan world transforming into Christianity,
establishing the theme of a gift or sacrifice offered to God, a theme
reinforced by the use of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, in particular an aria in the
form of a repeated prayer beautifully sung by Hungarian mezzo-soprano Julia
Hamari, Bach - Julia
Hamari - Matthäus Passion - Erbarme dich ... YouTube (7:34), that describes
Peter’s lament after having denied knowing Jesus three times.
Have mercy, my God,
for the sake of my tears!
Look upon me, heart and eyes
weep bitterly before You.
Have mercy, have mercy!
for the sake of my tears!
Look upon me, heart and eyes
weep bitterly before You.
Have mercy, have mercy!
Shot in Närsholmen, on the
southeast coast of Gotland, Sweden’s largest island, with a cast and crew that
more appropriately resembles that of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, including
his longtime cinematographer Sven Nykvist, yet this is essentially a Russian
film, where characters have a Dostoyevskian tendency to philosophize at any
given moment. The opening sequence of the film couldn’t be more
intriguing, consisting of the longest tracking shot (nine minutes and twenty
six seconds) in Tarkovsky’s career, where we are introduced to Alexander
(Erland Josephson), a retired actor and aging literary critic, and his young
son that he calls Little Man (Tommy Kjellqvist), who is temporarily unable to
speak from a minor throat operation, so the father has a prolonged monologue,
describing the story of the legend of Ioann Kolo, a pupil of an orthodox monk
named Pamve, who was ordered by his master to climb a mountain every day, to
water a dead tree he had planted, until the tree came back to life, which,
after three years, it finally did. Simultaneous to the telling of the
story, Alexander is planting what looks like a dead tree in a lone location
just off a path overlooking the Baltic Sea. They are interrupted by a
visit from Alexander’s friend Otto (Allan Edwall), a Holy Fool character who
arrives by bicycle as the postman, bringing a letter celebrating Alexander’s
50th birthday filled with humorous references to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot,
with Otto immediately breaking into a discussion on Nietzsche, adding his own
spin on the encounter between the dwarf and Zarathustra, becoming something of
his nemesis, jousting over the cycle of eternal recurrence,
which suggests all events in one’s life will happen again and again, and
continue happening infinitely. But as they walk, Otto teases Alexander
for being so gloomy, while raising a curious idea that most of us are all
living our lives in suspended animation, waiting for “something real and
important” to happen, that he describes as an absolute moment that defines the
rest of our lives into perpetuity, that could lead one to continual despair if
life is judged as disappointing, or continual reaffirmation if one has the
courage of one’s beliefs. After Otto leaves, Alexander sits down with
Little Man and tells him the story of how he initially discovered this isolated
house completely by accident (which is the real story of how Tarkovsky and his
wife Larissa found their own house), thinking it’s the most beautiful place in
the world before being reminded once again of the present and the emptiness of
the human condition. “Words, words, words,” Alexander finally laments to
himself in obvious exasperation, “Why can’t I do something?” This
existential abyss is at the heart of the film, where in a godless world, with
Alexander acknowledging God is “non-existent,” life has no meaning.
As they meander back home, strange shepherd’s calls can be
heard in the background, recurring throughout the film, offering a mysterious
presence of something eerie in the air, like the Sirens calling
to Ulysses, sounding faint and off in the distance, but hauntingly
beautiful. What follows is a black and white dream sequence, an overhead
shot of a courtyard littered with debris, including an overturned car, but a
noticeable absence of any people. By the time they get back to the
vacation house, a picturesque locale overlooking the sea, we begin to see the
quagmire of family dysfunction, having long ago abandoned any pretense of
communication, where now they live desperately in an intensely private world of
cold personal insults and verbal sparring, very much resembling the chilly
world of Bergman chamber dramas, unlike anything previously seen from earlier
Tarkovsky works, where even the choice of actors reveal traits heretofore
unseen, especially that of British actress Susan Fleetwood (older sister to
Mick, the founder of Fleetwood Mac) as Adelaide, Alexander’s wife, the only one
speaking a combination of Swedish and English, where the emotional divide
between them appears permanently soured. Also in the home is his somewhat
indifferent teenage stepdaughter Marta (Filippa Franzén) and Little Man, to
whom he is completely devoted, along with Victor (Sven Wollter), the medical
doctor who performed the throat operation, who may or may not be having an
affair with Adelaide. The spacious interior decors is designed by Anna
Asp, Bergman’s exquisite production designer from FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982),
with the director resorting to meticulous choreography, as the actors move
around the room during each shot, resembling the stifling, claustrophobic
paralysis of a Chekhov drama, though it’s the visual stylization that holds our
rapt attention, not the meaningless, rather banal conversation, though Otto at
one point simply falls to the floor, as if dead on the spot, only to get up and
declare, “An evil angel touched me.” Adelaide’s overbearing manner with
her servants is the picture of arrogance and class contempt, literally ordering
them around like pieces about to be sacrificed on a chessboard, where they’ve
apparently learned to ignore her. Maria (Guðrún S. Gísladóttir) is from
Iceland, living in town nearby, across an endlessly empty landscape, while
Julia (Valérie Mairesse) tends to Little Man and more closely resembles the
deeply religious maid in Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972). Just when
dinner is almost ready, there is a ferocious, ear-splitting noise of jet
fighters flying overhead, rattling the entire house, creating a transfixing
moment of utter panic, where a pitcher of milk sitting on the cabinet spills
onto the floor and shatters. When Alexander goes outside to investigate,
color is strangely drained from the world.
The mood of the film shifts instantly, as does the musical
soundtrack, where we hear the mysterious sounds of a Japanese flute performed
by Watazumido-Shuso, Watazumi
Doso Roshi, hocchiku - " Shingetsu 新月
" ("The ... “The Moonlit Soul” YouTube (5:22), which we later
learn is a tape played by Alexander, but the peaceful calm is in stark contrast
to the emotional shift that has taken place, as all sense the presence of
unimaginable danger. When Alexander joins the others, they are watching
an ominous television broadcast announcing the outbreak of a nuclear war before
the screen goes blank, the phone lines are dead, and eventually the power goes
out as well, though Alexander’s initial reaction is murmured to himself, “I
have waited my whole life for this,” suggesting this is the decisive moment
hinted at in the opening sequence with Otto, where suddenly his vision is
clear, rising up against overwhelming feelings of loathing and self-contempt,
and where the modern world lacks faith and spirituality, relying instead on
technology, power, and fear, he has instantly found his voice. The
autobiographical implications here are overwhelming, suggesting Tarkovsky was
implicitly aware of his own fate, using Alexander as a force compelled to act
against the impending doom of death and infinite nothingness, and in doing so,
becomes the director’s own transparent voice. But first we’re forced to
witness what is arguably the most uncomfortable scene in Tarkovsky’s career, as
Adelaide starts implicating the others, hysterically pleading for them to do
something, tossing herself on the floor, thrashing her legs violently as if in
the throes of madness, where she goes on endlessly in the most shamefully
overacted manner, screaming deliriously throughout, while as the viewer you’d
do almost anything for her to just shut up, but it takes forever for Victor to
finally sedate her with something out of his medical bag. Alexander,
inspecting afterwards, finds a loaded gun. After a few rounds of cognac,
the palpable fear in the room is tested, though the spookiest scenes involve
Little Man asleep in his room, where Alexander wanders up there with the gun,
presumably to put him out of his misery from the impending doom, as the blinds
continually knock against the window, offering really tense and creepy
atmosphere from a truly phenomenal sound design, which includes the continual
shepherd’s calls as well, creating an ominous, ill-fated atmosphere, with
characters occasionally staring straight at the camera. This leads to one
of the most personal scenes of the film, which goes on for nearly five-minutes,
where Alexander gets down on his knees and recites the Lord’s Prayer, followed
by an eloquent plea to save mankind from Armageddon, delivered straight to the
camera, brought on by a truly terrifying fear, as this is the ultimate war and
nothing will be left afterwards, where one wonders if the director himself was
ever driven to similar measures.
Lord, deliver us in this terrible
hour. Do not let my children die, my friends, my wife... I will
give you all I possess. I will leave the family I love. I shall
destroy my home, give up my son. I shall be silent, will never speak with
anyone again. I shall give up everything that binds me to life, if You
will only let everything be as it was before, as it was this morning, as it was
yesterday: so that I may be spared this deadly, suffocating, bestial state of
fear.
In this hour of a nuclear-devastated landscape, Tarkovsky and Nykvist performed significant amounts of color reduction, where as much as sixty percent of the color was removed, but these scenes are intermixed with surreal dream images that move in and out of color as well, making it hard to distinguish sleep from waking reality, as after an eventful night, plied with plenty of cognac, Alexander himself lies asleep on the sofa. Marta undresses and offers herself to Victor, her mother’s lover, while time slows to slow-motion, revealing a darkened interior hallway with rain falling from the ceiling, where one hears the sound of coins dropping onto the floor. Alexander can be seen heading out into the snow, discovering a recognizable dreamscape where he sees himself trudging through mud, finding silver coins lying next to the sleeping (or dead) form of his son, an inherent metaphor for the tremendous cost he must pay, waking to the enormous sound of jets flying overhead. But Otto is poking him awake as well, in a terribly agitated state, suggesting there may still be hope for the world. While Alexander remains groggy, Otto insists he could avert the imminent global disaster by sleeping with Maria, who he has heard is a soothsayer and witch. Initially finding the suggestion ridiculous, what other option does he have? So he halfheartedly sneaks out of the house in something of a humorous gesture, even changing his mind halfway along the way when he falls off the bike Otto lends him, but eventually finds himself standing in front of Maria’s door, a building we’ve seen before in one of the dream sequences, where Tarkovsky adds a Buñuelian twist, with sheep racing back and forth in front of the house, adding a bit of levity to an atmosphere drenched in perpetual grief and sorrow. While the shepherd’s continue to call, events become even more surreal than anything we’ve witnessed, where after initially turning him down, only afterwards does she realize just how desperate he is, leading him into her arms and to a levitation sequence hovering above the bed, much like there was in THE MIRROR (1979) and SOLARIS (1972), where we enter into the world of the supernatural, with recurring dream sequences, this time with people flooding into the streets in a crazed panic, interweaving various images seen throughout the film, including Maria dressed in Adelaide’s clothing and Marta nakedly chasing after chickens, leading into the meditative sounds of the flute playing. As Alexander awakes in his own home, with color returning to the world, along with the telephone and television, and music playing, with all seemingly right again, he realizes what he must do. While the audience is never certain if the events that transpire are real or a dream, but Alexander fulfills his vow in a remarkable closing sequence, directing the others to the tree that was planted just the day before, while he meticulously goes about the business of setting his house on fire. In one of the most powerful shots in cinema history, beautifully choreographed where events are timed several minutes into the six minute and 50 second shot, it was very difficult to achieve, obtaining near mythological status, failing in the first attempt when the camera jammed, having to be reshot and the house rebuilt, requiring an extra two weeks, but the cast and crew broke down in tears after the final take was completed. The back and forth choreographed madness has an absurd comical element, yet at the same time, the beauty of Alexander’s sacrifice is that no one realizes what he is trying to do, which only emphasizes the ultimate emotional devastation. While much of the astonishing beauty of the film is its dreamlike inner coherence, the tenderness of the ending is surprisingly life affirming, coming full circle, suggestive of a timeless Haiku poem, or a still moment frozen in time.
