Reflecting upon his own childhood and the destiny of the Russian people, this beautiful and densely layered film is Andrei Tarkovsky’s most autobiographical work.
Mirror is the celebrated Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s most autobiographical work in which he reflects upon his own childhood and the destiny of the Russian people.
The film’s many layers intertwine real life and family relationships – Tarkovsky’s father, the poet Arseny Tarkovsky, reads his own poems on the soundtrack and Tarkovsky’s mother appears as herself – with memories of childhood, dreams and nightmares. From the opening sequence of a boy being cured of a stammer by hypnotism, to a scene in a printing works which encapsulates the Stalinist era, Mirror has an extraordinary resonance and repays countless viewings.
Director
Andrei Tarkovsky
One of world’s most visionary, celebrated and influential filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky made just seven features before his tragically early death at the age of 54. Characterised by metaphysical and spiritual explorations of the human condition, each film is an artistic masterpiece of extraordinary visual beauty and stand as enduring classics of world cinema.
Details
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Colour: Colour and B&W
Production year: 1974
Original title: Zerkalo
DVD catalogue number: ART791DVD
Blu-ray catalogue number: ART181BD
Blu-ray special features:
-Interview with screenwriter A. Misharin
-Interview with composer Eduard Artemev
-Interview with actor Oleg Yankovskiy
-Faturette
-Andrei Tarkovsky’s metaphysical dream zone: Selected scene commentary by psychoanalyst Mary Wild
-40-page booklet
DVD special features:
-40-page booklet
“A film you allow to wash over you, stirring thoughts with its lyrical memories”
Kate Muir, The Times
“We are left to wonder if any director has delved with more modesty and honesty into the heartbreak of the past”
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
“Unique its form, unique its vision”
Time Out
“Visually stunning, baffling and intensely personal, the result is also impossibly ambiguous - but stick with it. Cinema rarely gets this close to poetry in motion.”
Jonathan Crocker, BBC
“If one needed to explain the term “arthouse” to a marauding space alien, the none- more-arthouse Mirror ticks all boxes”