Andrei Tarkovsky's great epic is about events that occurred in and around the life of the 15th century Russian icon painter Andrei Roublev. It is not about the life of Roublev himself and, unlike other films about artists, it is certainly not about Roublev in the act of creation. Tarkovsky saves his creations to the end of the film in a series of tableaux in colour, (the film is in black-and-white), of Roublev's genius. Divided into a series of chapters, it touches on those significant events to which Roublev was a witness and although the historical episodes are presented with an uncanny attention to detail, it is more with the spiritual and metaphysical elements that Tarkovsky concerns himself.
Roublev's journey through life is a deeply religious one but he is continually questioning and rediscovering his faith. His own inherent goodness is tested by the evils of the world around him. Even within the enclosed order of monks there is jealousy, envy, arrogance and doubt; so rather than being an account of the life of Roublev the film can be seen as a discourse on the thoughts and beliefs of it's creator.
In cinematic terms it is an extraordinary amalgam of form and ideas. Tarkovsky composes the film with the bravura of an old master, (you can see the influence of Ford as well as Eisenstien in the compositions). Films made today just don't measure up. Made in 1966, Tarkovsky made no concessions to either popular taste or to the direction which international cinema was going. It is, on the one level, art-house cinema of a deeply reflective kind while on another level it is an accessible historical epic that works on a visual, as well as a visceral, level. Mind-blowing in the very best sense of the word.
Roublev's journey through life is a deeply religious one but he is continually questioning and rediscovering his faith. His own inherent goodness is tested by the evils of the world around him. Even within the enclosed order of monks there is jealousy, envy, arrogance and doubt; so rather than being an account of the life of Roublev the film can be seen as a discourse on the thoughts and beliefs of it's creator.
In cinematic terms it is an extraordinary amalgam of form and ideas. Tarkovsky composes the film with the bravura of an old master, (you can see the influence of Ford as well as Eisenstien in the compositions). Films made today just don't measure up. Made in 1966, Tarkovsky made no concessions to either popular taste or to the direction which international cinema was going. It is, on the one level, art-house cinema of a deeply reflective kind while on another level it is an accessible historical epic that works on a visual, as well as a visceral, level. Mind-blowing in the very best sense of the word.