Andrei Rublev (1966)
Painting a Russian bible epic.
Presentation:
For a film made in 1966, the cinematography is quite impressive hurling you into the skies in just the very first scene. It’s a truly wonder how some of these shots were possible for its time. The film is told in 8 parts with a prologue and epilogue. It’s a little difficult to follow as there isn’t much explanation, assuming you understand most of the context and characters already. Essentially 3 Christian iconographer painters travel 15th century Russia and experience an epic journey of shame, discovery and depravity. It is definitely epic in nature spanning over 3 hours with Tarkovsky’s typically drawn out cinematography and long anamorphic pans. However compared to his other films, this one is packed with dialogue and plot, even quite a bit of action. I would say this is one of those films that could be improved if you watched at 2x speed. There is a sense of scale with the sheer number of people compared to the more intimate stories of his psychological films. This one still has some elements of psychological depth, but it is more surface level. The performances are theatrical in nature and it feels like a bible story, except much better told. The depth of field is a bit more shallow here so you can see more barrel distortion and softness at the edges at times. However this made it difficult to identify characters and events as the effects are already unclear by modern standards. He utilizes a few signature shots of water, which work well for his themes of humanity.
Conclusion:
This is a masterpiece quality film and even given its technical restraints the scale still leaves you swooning. It’s surprisingly digestible given its long runtime and material, even more so than his sci-fi films. If you like historical films, this is one of the more hardcore biographies. It’s very serious but could be worth it because to be honest, most people from the west probably know very little of Russian history let alone their christian iconographers. We’ve seen medieval times in cinema, but not really from the Russian perspective, which makes it intriguing for the 3 hour runtime. Rublev’s odyssey is both epic and grounded, which ultimately makes it feel biblical in tone. The religious aspects are not particularly in your face and can be appreciated for all audiences because the main message is more about humanity and all it’s flaws. Despite constant carnage and misfortune, the artists and ultimately audiences also find a reason to keep pushing on. Most importantly, it might make you understand that in cinema, we all bleed the same color.
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