Thursday, July 28, 2022

Andrei Rublev (1966)

IMDb plot summary: The life, times and afflictions of the fifteenth-century Russian iconographer St. Andrei Rublev.
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Starring Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, and Nikolay Grinko.

Andrei Rublev is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky telling the story of a (real life) artist who finds himself questioning his purpose as an artist during a time of war and turbulence. If you've been following any of my recent reviews, you'll know Tarkovsky is not a director I get along with very well. I find him irritatingly slow and maddeningly symbolic in his storytelling. This film is fairly linear and straightforward, but definitely still slow, so I found myself frequently referring back to the film's synopsis on Wikipedia to help me follow along whenever I got bored and zoned out. That actually was quite helpful for me, as I was able to track more easily the overall arc of the story. I still often find myself wondering why we're being shown one particular scene or another, as Tarkovsky and I just don't have the same storytelling sense, but at least following along made it easier to remember from scene to scene and helped me get more out of it. It is just as philosophical as his other works, but this time it centers heavily on religious and artistic themes, which probably also helped me get into it, as I'm fascinated by both those themes. Overall, an easier Tarkovsky watch for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Andrei Rublev < Les Miserables (2012)
Andrei Rublev > She's All That
Andrei Rublev < Hitchcock
Andrei Rublev < Metropolis
Andrei Rublev > Charly
Andrei Rublev < Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Andrei Rublev > Ivan's Childhood
Andrei Rublev > Captain America: Civil War
Andrei Rublev < Lovelace
Andrei Rublev > Luther
Andrei Rublev > The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach
Andrei Rublev < The Deadly Affair
Final spot: #2549 out of 3613, or 29%.

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