Mirror (1975)

Film: Mirror

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Country: Russia

Released: March 1975

Runtime: 106 minutes

Genre: Slow Cinema

Studio: Mosfilm

Influenced: Alexander Sokurov, Lars von Trier, Béla Tarr, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Andrey Zvyagintsev

Writing about Tarkovsky is like, as the saying goes, dancing about architecture. His is a visual cinematic language that defies explanation. Narrative or plot is secondary in his films to the visual expression of the inner life of his characters and the beauty and mystery of nature. While Mirror may not have a traditional plot or storytelling approach, it's still marked by Tarkovsky's signature touch – philosophical depth, unique aesthetics and a meditative exploration of the human condition. Meditative really is an apt way to describe this film, which has moments of magic like the sudden gust of wind that hits the doctor as he walks away from Aleksei mother's Maria on his way back via the bush to Tomshino, and later in the film when a young Aleksei stands in the snow by the river and he catches a bird that lands on his hat.

Tarkovsky conceived Mirror as a deeply personal film, an intimate look at memory, history and identity. As the film's screenwriter Alexsandr Misharin says, there is a lot of overlap in Mirror between his and Tarkovsky's lives, especially in relation to their mothers. He talks of how they planned 28 scenes and wrote 14 each, and instead of a chronological storyline, Mirror mixes together dreams, memories and real-time sequences and archival footage, including documentary reels from World War II, the Cultural Revolution in China and Spanish bullfighting. The viewer is led through various time periods, all of which are tied to the personal history of the protagonist, Alexei. The blend of colour and monochrome footage, newsreels, poems read by the protagonist's mother and the evocative soundtrack further contribute to the movie's unique dreamlike quality.

The film primarily revolves around the character of Alexei, a dying man in his 40s, as he grapples with his past, his mortality and the history of his country. It alternates between three time periods: pre-war, WWII and post-war, which are presented not chronologically but rather as an emotional and thematic montage. We are privy to Alexei's childhood memories, his experiences during WWII and his life as an adult, each reflecting the personal, historical and political turbulence of the times. The opening sequence, which depicts a boy undergoing hypnosis to cure his stuttering, can be seen as Tarkovsky's subtle critique of the oppressive Soviet regime. Despite initial criticism and censorship in the Soviet Union, the film has grown in reputation over the years, and is now widely considered one of the greatest films of all time.

Mirror's dense symbolism and introspective narrative style have encouraged audiences to actively engage with the movie, interpreting and reinterpreting it in various ways. The early scene where a barn catches fire in the wind can be seen as a powerful allegory of the devastation of war, while the dream sequence where Alexei sees himself approaching his own home, witnessing a moment from his childhood as an outsider, underlines the film's meditations on time and memory. There are elements of horror too in some of the dream sequences, like when Aleksei's mother washes her hair and it shrouds her face and then the ceiling starts to fall in. There are great shots of the old Russian printing processes, with some footage slowed down for poetic effect, and a memorable closing shot, when the camera disappears into the woods. That final sequence, where the mother sees her own image reflected in a mirror held by her son, is one of many poignant moments, encapsulating the movie's themes of memory and the passage of time.