Andrei Rublev

Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 1966, 185 minutes

Along with films such as Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and Paradjanov's Colour of Pomegranates, Andrei Rublev is one of the great films of the Soviet era. It is long and slow, but powerful and impressive. Rublev the man was an important painter of icons in the 15th century. The film depicts eight imaginary episodes from his life, and is concerned primarily with his loss of his faith, his art, and even his speech, as a result of the cruelty which he sees all around him; then the regaining of these things. The film was not permitted to be released for several years, for it was thought too bleak and depressing for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Director and co-writer uses scope and glorious colour to present beautiful shots of Rublev's art, which make the film very much worth seeing on the big screen.

Review by Stephen Cox
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96