"Sacrifice" is a film made in Sweden by the famous Soviet film director Andrei Tarkovsky. As the master of contemporary film language passed away in Paris on December 29, 1986, "Sacrifice" became his death work.
"Sacrifice" was the first film Tarkovsky had to make completely out of the sensuous world of Russian culture (landscape, nature, material world and Russians). When talking about the conception process of the film, Tarkovsky once said: "When writing the first draft of "The Sacrifice", all the characters in the work are clear and clear, the plot development is also clear and full of structure, and Not constrained by the circumstances I am in. The process is conscious, it enters my life... Also, when I was shooting my first film abroad, Nostalgic, I was There is a lingering feeling that "Nostalgia" will affect my life. If according to the script, Gorchakov's stay in Italy is only temporary. However, in the film, he dies, in other words, he does not return Russia, it's not because he doesn't want to go back, it's fate. I also didn't expect that after finishing filming in Italy, I would obey the will of God like Gorchakov. And a sad Facts deepened my thinking: Anatoly Solonitsyn died. He played the main role in all my previous films. According to my suggestion, he should play Gorchakov in Nostalgia , played Alexander in "The Sacrifice". But he died of an illness. Illness forced him out of the role of Alexander. A few years later, I was also seriously ill. What does that mean? I don't know. But I don't doubt that this Poetry films will become concrete, attainable truths materialized and understandable. And, whether I like it or not, the film itself will affect my life.”
It is true that Tarkovsky always started from reality, from the real world surrounding his own destiny. However, when he created "Sacrifice", the real world in which he lived was no longer his Russian hometown. His own situation is also very different from that of artists living in Russia. If he wants to be true to himself, true to his creation, he has to change.
So how does "Sacrifice" differ from Tarkovsky's previous films? Where is its non-Russian character? How has its style and theme changed? As early as "Solar System" and "Stalker", the director also unfolded the plot in his imagination, just like in "Sacrifice". However, that imaginary world is acceptable and understandable to both the creators of the film and the audience, because they were shot in Russia, and the camera depicts the concrete world of Russian culture and nature, in which the Russian actors live, The world in which the fate of Russia unfolds. No matter how different the narratives and styles of Tarkovsky's films before The Sacrifice, the world they portray is accessible, realistic, and real. To borrow Tarkovsky's own words, it is "observing life like a document, and then recording it on film".
In "Sacrifice", Tarkovsky had to completely break away from the Russian human environment. The director must find himself in another world, independent of the specific location and style of the film's plot. So what is this other world like? In Nostalgia, this other world is very specific, and that is the West, the West that was opposed to the Soviet Union at the time. In "Sacrifice", this opposition between East and West no longer exists. In this film, this other world is just a filming location. It's not Russia, it's not the West, it's just a place where human tragicomedy takes place. From this point of view, the specific location of the plot in "Sacrifice" is more abstract and symbolic compared to the director's other films: the simplicity of lines, the harmony of scenery, the freshness of colors, the extension of light, All become so simple and natural, giving the impression of a heavenly beauty. The director seems to be telling the audience that this is how human beings should live. However, the director also emphasizes the reality of the protagonist's activity location in a single sense, and expresses his concern that human beings may lose such a life through the protagonist's dialogue. In this way, Andrei Tarkovsky, in his first and last non-Russian film "The Sacrifice", reconstructed his personal and spiritual world and found himself in this world . And this world still connects him with the traditions of Russian culture and art.
It can be said that the protagonist of "Sacrifice", Alexander, is the director's second self. Through Alexander, the director expresses the panic of a terminally ill Russian artist who is far away from the motherland and worried about the world, and his desire to sacrifice himself for the sake of saving mankind. In the film, when Alexander says "Mankind is walking on a wrong path, and this path is very dangerous", the still camera is facing him far away for a long time, causing a strong visual effect. The picture of Alexander planting a tree is also almost silent, with only the child in a white hat playing silently beside his father.
The director uses this boy to hint at the future of mankind, which is always under nuclear threat. The scene in which Alexander prays to the witch Maria to save the human race is dealt with quite vigorously. In Alexander's long monologue about his mother's death, he recalls that he wanted to tidy up the garden of his hometown, but it backfired and destroyed the natural beauty. exhausted. This monologue confirms the protagonist's words in the film: "Once human beings have made great discoveries, they turn them into weapons... All that is not necessary for life is sin." A scene in the film is shocking: Alexander suddenly sees his home detached from him, sitting like a small matchbox in his Underfoot—he gazed upon this little field of comfort, as the Creator gazes upon the earth of sin, and raises upon his head the butcher-knife of sacrifice. And for the sake of human fraternity, he is ready to take on the sacrifice and burn all this, along with his family and himself.
In Tarkovsky's films, the intuitive world is never a set, a prop, or a sociological background, nor is it subordinate to the play. In his films, the actors are not acting, but continuing the lives of the people in the world in the film. In his works, people and objects are independent, moving individuals. They are all full of pictorial significance, and their presence here or there is by no means accidental, but because they are connected to the second self of the film's author, the protagonist. Recalling those old books, wooden houses, icons, mirrors, rain, etc. that often appear in all Tarkovsky's films, you can realize that in Tarkovsky's spiritual world, These objects are necessary in the artistic atmosphere of his films, and, through Tarkovsky's directorial portfolio, all these ordinary and mundane objects become sensitive and receptive.
Andrei Tarkovsky's attitude towards life should be considered dynamic. People with this attitude must be attracted to everything that is in motion, growing, and developing. Stillness, in his view, is unnatural, the end of life. The director often passes his point of view to the protagonists of the film. The monologue of the protagonist in "Stalker" says: "When a man is born, he is weak and supple; when a man dies, he is strong and cold. When a tree grows, it is soft , soft, and when it becomes dry and hard, it is about to die." In fact, this monologue expounds the thought of the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching": "Man's life is also weak, and his death It is also strong. The life of grass and trees is soft and brittle, and its death is also withered. Therefore, the strong will die, and the weak will live." Tarkovsky once said: "...I think I am closer to the Eastern way of thinking. The way is to arouse people's inner echoes, not to lure them into the trap of superficial rap." After watching the film "Sacrifice" and scrutinizing Tarkovsky's words, the audience can appreciate this. The resonance between the feelings of the great Russian artist about the world and Eastern art and Eastern philosophy: to understand reality as mutable, to think that the entire universe and every object in the universe are mutable.
In "Sacrifice," Tarkovsky conveys this resonance to the film's protagonist. For example, Alexander's birthday party was damaged by a thunderstorm. There were mysterious cries in the distance, news of a nuclear disaster was broadcast on the radio... In several of Tarkovsky's other works, rain has also appeared many times as an important modeling method. Ancient Chinese philosophers believed that rain means the unity of heaven and earth, reflecting the power of "yin" and "yang". The unification of "Yin" and "Yang" will generate tremendous creativity and eventually become the basis for the existence of the universe and reality. Perhaps, Tarkovsky, who is deeply influenced by Eastern thinking, uses a natural phenomenon such as "rain" as a means to introduce reality into dynamics in his works, making it full of inner vitality. As a result of the thunderstorm's revelation, Alexander is willing to make personal sacrifices to save mankind. It should also be emphasized that the tree that appears in the opening and closing credits of Sacrifice. In such a head-to-tail modeling treatment, the director endowed the "tree" with figurative energy - "water every day until the tree is watered alive". This is the dynamic attitude of Tarkovsky as an artist.
Andrei Tarkovsky described "The Sacrifice" as follows: "The film is an allegory of poetry. Each episode can be interpreted differently. I am very aware of this film. The film is inconsistent with the concepts accepted by people today..." Objectively speaking, "Sacrifice", which expresses the spiritual decadence of people in the nuclear age, is indeed a serious but confusing film. It seems to express an unspoken wish of the director: to allow the audience to read and interpret the image meaning of the material provided by the film, so as to understand the great Russian artist's interpretation of everything, awakening the world and changing it before he bids farewell to the world. the desire of the world.
"Sacrifice", as an excellent poetic film and author's film, will be recorded in the world film history together with the name of Andrei Tarkovsky.
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