Had he lived to this day, Andrei Tarkovsky, a genuine Russian film director, would celebrate his 80th birthday. Instead, we celebrate the lifetime of work marked by a never-ending philosophical quest, poetry, and constant probing.
Born into a family of the Russian poet Arseniy Tarkovsky, Andrei went on to graduate from the State Institute of Cinematography with a short film, The Streamroller and the Violin. The script was co-written by Tarkovsky and Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, another outstanding Russian director and the brother of Nikita Mikhalkov. I found a subtitled version, which I am sure will be a treat to all those who have already discovered and long loved such masterpieces, as Andrei Rublev (about the Russian icon painter and creator of the famous Trinity), Solaris (an adaptation of the novel by S. Lem), Ivan’s Childhood (a war-time drama about a boy), The Mirror (where Andrei first introduced to the public the poetry of his father), The Stalker (an adaptation of the novel by the Strugatsky Brothers), Nostalghia (with the script by Tonino Guerra), and The Sacrifice (again based on a script by Arkady Strugatsky, the film scooped many coveted awards, including the Grand Prix at the Cannes festival in 1986).
Still, it all started here, with The Streamroller and the Violin. Here already we notice Tarkovsky’s masterful use of colour and reflections as dramaturgical means.
