NOSTALGHIA (1983), Andrei Tarkovsky - The mercurial nature of this film -- its liquidity (incompressible but formless state) -- is mesmerizing. The central narrative -- a Russian poet (Oleg Yankovsky) researching a Russian musician's time spent in Italy in the 1700s -- is the frame which the amorphous stuff of Tarkovsky's film flows up against, into, and around without every reaching saturation. All of this is to say, Nostalghia is a portrait of the state of vague desire felt by all sentient beings without ever apparently achieving what is longed for.The exquisite structure of the film -- its mise en scène -- is somewhere in-between a parable by Bergman and/or Antonioni, a parabolical milieu that represents the intersection of variable states of consciousness (of vaporous, fixed and fluid states belonging to one or another of the inhabitants of this film, inclusive of the landscape and architecture) best illustrated by the long tracking shots Tarkovsky used in the black-and-white dream sequences where figures appear first in one part of the evolving frame and then in another, looking as it were at themselves looking at themselves looking at the dreamer (Andrei) looking at himself.
There is a recurring theme of architecture as analog for consciousness, and several scenes where architecture in ruins is invaded by nature. And, then, there is rain, permeating this symbolical structural system, like the fog that opens the film, and suggesting a rotting, decomposing and regenerative essence within the film mirroring the ennui and the morbidity of the Russian poet as he slides toward his own end, making a pilgrimage across an outdoor pool with a lighted candle to fulfil the promise he has made to a reclusive and visionary madman (Erland Josephson). This eccentric "man of faith" has passed his own obsession with this ritual act on to Andrei, the poet, unable to complete the transaction himself.
The longing for Russia, the poet's affliction (shared with the 18th-century composer), becomes a universal condition as it is deferred and transcribed into a quest for something that transcends time, space, and nationality, bringing home the poet's words that to understand one another we must dissolve national boundaries (and, one might add, 'natural' boundaries), the provisional borders and walls suggestive of inexorable psychic states -- rationality, individuality, sanity, madness, and, of course, nostalgia.
Gavin Keeney (September 2001)
Apologies - The PDF was taken offline 07/16/05
Juhani Pallasmaa produced a chapter-long disquisition on the cinematic structure of Nostalghia in The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2001) - See “Poetics of Image: Andrei Tarkovsky Nostalghia”, pp. 63-92 - The section of this essay entitled “Discontinuous Narrative: Doubling and Restraint” (p. 69) discusses the paired personae of the elliptical and elisional narrative ... Yet doublings and ‘triplings’ occur, as it were, given that Andrei-Domenico is the main dyadic event and, as Pallasmaa points out, “A strange mirror image is created in the scene of Domenico’s self-immolation when his assistant mimics the tortured movements of the burning man.” The recurring (echoing) image of fire seems a motif which bridges the chasm of dialectical figuration insofar as it is represented in its multitudinous aspects; redemptive, destructive and purifying ... See “Images of Fire and Water” (pp. 84-86) ... Pallasmaa summons Bachelard in this passage to rub one thing against another so to speak, or to (re)create ‘heat’ ... “Thermal water ... is imagined first of all as the immediate composition of water and fire.” This refers to the central gesture of the film, the sacred thermal springs of St Catherine, and Andrei’s trip across the emptied pool at the very tale end of the film, with a flickering candle, while Domenico sets himself aflame in Rome ... And thus, “There are composite images, but the life of images has a more demanding purity of filiations.” (Gaston Bachelard, “Air and Dreams”, 1947) ... “Look at it [Nostalghia] as if it were the window of a train travelling through your life.” Andrei Tarkovsky (p. 92)
Tarkovsky's Mirror (1974) / Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979) / Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972)
Tarkovsky Site (University of Calgary) / More Tarkovsky (Tea @ 5)
Nostalghia (Details of Nostalghia)
Nostalghia (Radiotelevisione Italiana, 1983) - 120 minutes - Color/B&W - Italian w/ English subtitles - w/ Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, and Domiziana Giordano
RusCiCo - "RUSCICO (RUSSIAN CINEMA COUNCIL) is a commercial association of Russian and foreign companies, created for the purpose of realizing a complex program of restoring, remastering, replication and world distribution of a collection of the best Soviet and Russian feature, documentary and animated films, as well as of film versions of the best ballet, opera and theatre productions, in a DVD format. The project's budget will allow RUSCICO to release on DVD discs, within the 1999-2005 period, over 120 motion pictures produced at MOSFILM, LENFILM, GORKY FILM, GEORGIA-FILM, SOYUZMULTFILM, and other studios."
Andrei Tarkovsky Companion (Artficial Eye) - "Moscow Elegy" (Alexander Sokurov). Conceived to mark the 50th anniversary of Tarkovsky’s birth, this is a highly personal tribute by Alexander Sokurov -- the acclaimed director of "Russian Ark" and "Mother and Son" -- to the man who was both his mentor and friend. Reflecting upon Tarkovsky’s life, his far-reaching influence and the void left by his defection from Soviet Russia to Europe in 1982, this elegiac film features fascinating footage of the man at work and rest, and, of course, his films. Russia 1987, 88 minutes, Russian & Italian with English subtitles / "One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevitch" (Chris Marker). This appreciation of Tarkovsky made by his friend Chris Marker for the French television series "Cinema du Notre Temps" is both an illuminating personal portrait and a poetic study of the Russian master’s films. Granted access to the set of "The Sacrifice" Marker captured fascinating and insightful behind-the-scenes footage, including the editing process which the then gravely ill Tarkovsky conducted from his sickbed. France 1999, 55 minutes, colour, French, English, Italian & Russian with English subtitles / "Tempo di Viaggio" ("Time of a Journey") (Andrei Tarkovsky & Tonino Guerra). Tarkovsky’s documentary explores the creation of the screenplay for his penultimate film "Nostalgia". It shows his wide-ranging discussions with his Italian co-writer Tonino Guerra (Antonioni’s regular collaborator) and the hunt for suitable locations that might embody his vision of the film. Italy 1983, 62 minutes, colour, Italian & Russian with English subtitles.
