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Zerkalo (1975)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
April 1975 (Soviet Union) morePlot:
A man in his forties is going to die and remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments but things that also tell the story of all the Russian nation... full summary | full synopsisUser Comments:
See it and die more (50 total)Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Margarita Terekhova | ... | Natalya / Maroussia - the Mother | |
| Oleg Yankovskiy | ... | The Father | |
| Filipp Yankovsky | ... | Aleksei - 5-years-old | |
| Ignat Daniltsev | ... | Ignat / Aleksei - 12-year-old | |
| Nikolai Grinko | ... | Printery Director | |
| Alla Demidova | ... | Lisa | |
| Yuri Nazarov | ... | Military trainer | |
| Anatoli Solonitsyn | ... | Forensic doctor | |
| Larisa Tarkovskaya | ... | Nadezha - Mother of 12-y-o Alexei | |
| Tamara Ogorodnikova | ... | Nanny / Neighbour / Strange woman at the tea table | |
| Yuri Sventisov | ... | Yuri Zhary | |
| Tamara Reshetnikova | |||
| Innokenti Smoktunovsky | ... | Aleksei (voice) | |
| Arseni Tarkovsky | ... | Father (voice) | |
| E. Del Bosque | ... | A Spaniard |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
Зеркало (Soviet Union: Russian title)Sarke (Soviet Union: Georgian title)
The Mirror (USA)
White, White Day (English translation of working title)
more
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
108 minCountry:
Soviet UnionAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 moreSound Mix:
MonoCertification:
Iceland:L | Canada:G (Ontario) | Australia:M | Singapore:PG | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-12 | West Germany:12 | UK:U | Hong Kong:IFun Stuff
Trivia:
In the first scene involving a telephone call, the shot tracks past a poster for French adaptation of Andrey Rublyov (1966), another Andrei Tarkovsky film. moreGoofs:
Boom mic visible: In the hypnotizing-scene at the beginning (second minute of the film), when the hypnotist is holding the hands of the boy, the whole shadow of the microphone is visible on the wall to the left for over a minute. moreQuotes:
Father: It seems to make me return to the place, poignantly dear to my heart, where my grandfathers house used to be in which i was born 40 years ago right on the dinner table. Each time i try to enter it, something prevents me from doing that. I see this dream again and again... moreMovie Connections:
Featured in Im Laboratorium des Doktor von Trier: Zurück zur Magie des Kinos (1998) (TV) moreSoundtrack:
Johannes Passion - BWV 245 moreFAQ
Which paint inspired the famous scene with a bird landing at boy's head?more
more (50 total)
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We are talking visual poetry here. For almost the entire film, every square inch of screen is minutely painted. Ordinary criticism doesn't apply, there is no comparison between this and any other film.
So many scenes have you holding your breath in awe. The smallest movement of light is choreographed precisely. A shadow across someone's face, the wind in the trees - these are not simply images of those things, but the ungraspable nature of life, regret, beauty, memory. So much more lies beneath the surface, as we are shown a reflection in a mirror that momentarily purports to be reality, but need not necessarily be interpreted as such.
The film's magic derives from Tarkovsky's surefooted ability to succeed with a succession of intense, beautiful images. He cannot put a foot wrong. Discontinuity in the narrative give the appearance of complexity, but Tarkovksy would insist that the basic thrust of the narrative is simple. The film is immensely personal, and the disconnections only serve to involve the viewer more we are allowed to fill in the gaps ourselves.
To appreciate all this you need an essential sympathy for nostalgia and memories, for the passing of life, and for regret. You need an appreciation of a silent room and what it previously held, and of nature. You will need a sense of living in a turbulent and dangerous world, where all beauty is transient and sad. You will need to understand how small moments in life can become the most precious.
The film is tragic because, like memories, it lingers. It shows us details beneath the surface and how they can affect us. It shows life in the context of death, nature, the times and places we have passed through. The camera ponders and paints all this in beautiful detail.
Of course, real life is never so rich nor so intense - only momentarily so. The film wants to distil as much of that precious beauty as possible in a number of disjointed moments, coloured through memory and imagination, from childhood through to the point of death.
Apply it to your own life. There is no more than this.